Cat Whisker Press, $2.99, ISBN 978-1370356928
Historical Romance, 2017
No, Sydney Jane Baily’s Presenting Lady Gus is not about a bloke trying to present his boyfriend in drag in order to fool other people into letting them get legally wedded in the Georgian era.
The story is more mundane, at least relatively speaking, because there is nothing mundane about Augusta Brenville’s suitors that kept dying before she managed to drag them to the altar.
She needs to get married to a super wealthy bloke to pay off the pile of debts and bills amassed by her family—dotty father with no head for money, the usual story—and there is also a clause in her grandfather’s will that demands that she gets shackled and pops out a brat before her 25th birthday if she wanted to keep that place.
Fortunately, her father has some good news for her. He’s found her a bloke to wed!
“No, you’ve never met. He is from the far east.”
Shocked, she jumped to her feet, spilling the dog onto its other side. “A heathen! An infidel!” she exclaimed. “From . . . from Nepal or . . . Persia ?” What had her father done? Even her dog growled at the tenseness in her voice.
“No, no, dear. From Kent, Ramsgate actually,” Lord Brenville reassured her.
It gets better. Dear Lord Brenville, whom one shouldn’t confuse for Lord Brainless, has more news to share.
“Well,” he dragged the word out as long as he could. “In absolute truth, I have never laid eyes upon him. However,” he rushed on as she sat back down with a thud, the chair nearly slipping out from under her, “by all accounts, he is sound of mind and body. A captain in the King’s navy, a youngest son who has amassed his own wealth by the sweat of his brow, if not the brains in his head.”
This bloke is Captain Rolf, who is enamored of the Brenville home, Thornbury Castle, and oh yes, the wench that comes with it is pretty cute too.
Whether or not he can live to see his wedding day, much less win the lady’s heart, however, remains to be seen. Clearly, someone doesn’t want Augusta to get her hands on the property.
Gee, who can that villain be? Could it be… that horrible male cousin that always exists in this kind of story that is next in line to inherit everything if she didn’t become a well-oiled baby-popping factory when she turns 25?
Now, to my pleasant surprise, I find myself charmed by Augusta. Sure, she can be a dingbat at times, but she’s on the whole pretty okay. She doesn’t do neurotic stuff that gets on my nerves, she tries to keep communication channels open with the husband-to-be, and she even tries to take subtle actions to get him to be more agreeable to her sensibilities, like getting him to bathe more often, for example.
Yes, the guy has serious hygiene issues. Sure, one can say that he’s a seafaring fellow, so one can’t expect him to be cognizant with regular baths and what not. However, to go days on land without bathing or even putting on scent, trudging around in filthy clothes and, shudder, dirty fingernails… yikes.
That is the wrong kind of filthy that I’m looking for in my romance heroes. I don’t care if he could give one multiple orgasms simply by breathing or how sexy he is. Does he have crabs, lice, tapeworms, and worse? I don’t drool with lust at that guy; I want to don a hazmat suit and spray him down with the strongest fumigant I can get my hands on.
To top it off, the guy is patronizing as can be, dismissing all of Augusta’s concerns because, heh, lady brains. Even when he clearly knows far less than her about a subject, he has no qualms shushing her concerns or explanations because here, here, a man is finally here in her life and she can focus on doing ladylike things instead of thinking for herself.
Oh, and he’s a gauche, making advances at Augusta like some clumsy, shambling zombie crying for boobies instead of brains.
I really think, sigh, that the author’s idea of a sexy scoundrel is worlds apart from me. Gauche, socially inept romance heroes are perfectly fine if these guys also showed some winning traits, such as earnestness, sincerity, kindness, capability, or at the very least an adorable sense of humor.
Rolf, however, just makes me roll up my eyes. I won’t be too heartbroken if he accidentally drowns while taking a bath, let’s just say.
The author’s writing style is perfectly fine, and the fact that this story could have been very enjoyable under other circumstances makes a part of me very reluctant to give this one a score lower than three oogies. After all, I like the heroine, even if I thought she deserves much better than the filthy jackass she is forced to take as a husband.
Still, the hero is a pompous boor, and really, that hygiene thing is a unquestionable, irrevocable deal breaker. So sorry, my dear Augusta, but this one is getting two oogies.
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