Romance

Improper Relations by Janet Mullany

Karen Wheless


Several people recommended Janet Mullany to me, so I ignored the budget and ordered them from the UK. (Amazing how fast that is now – I got these faster from Book Depository in the UK than some of my paperbackswap books coming from a nearby state.) One worked, one didn’t.

Improper Relations by Janet Mullany
(2010, Regency)
Grade: 4

Charlotte Hayden is saddened when her best friend Ann gets married to the Earl of Beresford and seems to forget her. But when she meets Beresford’s cousin, Shad, she finds herself intrigued – but she never meant to marry him! After they are forced to marry, they find that they get along better than expected – but misunderstandings and friends get in the way.

A very funny Regency. Mullany’s Regency world is a little bawdier and blunter than a typical Regency, which was entertaining to read. The hero and heroine’s sarcastic remarks made me laugh and the situations were fun without becoming too silly. I tried to read one of Mullany’s previous books, A Most Lamentable Comedy, and I couldn’t finish it because even though it was fun, I didn’t care about the characters and the plot kept wandering all over the place. It seemed like the author sacrificed believability to make jokes. In this book, the characters were more appealing and believable, and the plot, while silly, held together enough to keep the book going. There were some problems with the book – the alternating first person narrative sometimes jumped around too much and pulled me out of the story, and story depended too many times on the heroine getting tipsy and doing stupid things. I don’t think I could reread this book without noticing the glaring errors, but on the first read, I could ignore the plot holes and just enjoy the fun.

I’m not sure I will read another Janet Mullany book – it’s too easy for humor to fall flat with me, and this one just barely managed.

Karen Wheless

I've been reading romance since I discovered Kathleen Woodiwiss at age 12. I love all kinds of romances, especially emotional and angsty stories. I finally cut back my TBR pile from 2000 books to only 400, but I still have lots of books left to read!

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