Last fall sometime I read MC Beaton’s SNOBBERY WITH VIOLENCE, which I enjoyed very much (as I do nearly all of Beaton’s historical romancs) and asked for the rest of the quartet for Christmas so I could finish them all before doing a Recent Reads on them.
A couple weeks ago I picked up the 2nd book and found it…incredibly disjointed. There was no flow from book 1 to book 2, and while it had been a few months since I’d read the first, I didn’t think it had been *that* long. I couldn’t remember the things mentioned in the sort of recap-first-chapter, and found it really hard to get into. But I struggled along, never really finding the rhythm of the thing, and upon reaching the end was surprised to find that our protagonists were getting married now. “Huh,” I thought, “that’ll change the dynamic of the last two books.”
So I picked up the third book. Except the characters weren’t married. In fact, the 3rd book appeared to be about some of the recapped adventures from the 2nd book’s first chapter.
With a sinking feeling, I checked the order of the books inside the front cover, and discovered I had shelved them out of order (a thing I NEVER do) and read the 4th and final book second. ARGH.
Anyway, now it feels totally pointless to read books 2 & 3, even though it’s not like there’s any great surprise in what’s going to happen in a light fluffy historical romance series. In fact, I’ve spent most of the past week trying to read the second and third books and just being totally unable to get into them, so I guess I’ll give up and move on to something else. Maybe if I hang on to them for a while I can start anew sometime. Or maybe I just won’t bother, which is sad, because they were a Christmas present. :(
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