Vanessa James (1) (1944–)

This author has a strange writing style. Hard to explain, sort of poetical and not necessarily in a good way. The hero was pretty darn beta, an absent minded professor who is always backing his car into things etc. She was his ward, but is now 22 and on unemployment. Lots of stuff happens that you're not interested in. And sometimes you're not sure what exactly is going on. The writing sometimes is just vaguely unclear.

And then there was a scene from page 42 to page 62 of the hero and the villain playing cricket. Seriously, you got 189 pages to tell a story and 20 of them are an incomprehensible play by play of a game that only people from the British Commonwealth understand? I realize the book took place in England and I've read many books where the characters play cricket but do we really need to know "...Jack Middleton, a useful spin-bowler, but not an all-rounder, poked the ball somewhat awkwardly past the slips and begain to pound down the wicket. Alexis reached his crease before his partner, puffing and sweating, was three quarters of the way down. Alexis frowned, bent forward, took up his stance. He put the next ball away for four, the one after for a glorious six." Might as well have been written in Swahili and just FYI, Jack Middleton? never mentioned before or after. I think the author must be a serious cricket fan. I wouldn't even want to read 20 pages about a game I understood in a romance novel.

In the rest of the book there was some conclusion leaping, a little angst, various misunderstandings, and the heroine doing a strip dance at a girly club to save a poor strippers job.… (mere)