Afbeelding auteur

Dorothy Mack

Auteur van The Mock Marriage

25 Werken 482 Leden 21 Besprekingen

Over de Auteur

Bevat de naam: Alexandra Dors

Werken van Dorothy Mack

The Mock Marriage (1991) 29 exemplaren
An Unconventional Courtship (1987) 28 exemplaren
The Abducted Bride (2005) 27 exemplaren
The Luckless Elopement (1984) 27 exemplaren
The Last Waltz (1986) 26 exemplaren
The Courtship of Chloe (1992) 25 exemplaren
The Blackmailed Bridegroom (1984) 24 exemplaren
The Gold Scent Bottle (2000) 24 exemplaren
A Prior Attachment (1989) 22 exemplaren
The Lost Heir (1993) 21 exemplaren
A Temporary Betrothal (1995) 20 exemplaren
The Substitute Bride (1977) 20 exemplaren
The Counterfeit Widow (1996) 19 exemplaren
The Awakening Heart (1993) 18 exemplaren
The General's Granddaughter (1990) 18 exemplaren
The Unlikely Chaperone (1991) 17 exemplaren
The Gamester's Daughter (1998) 17 exemplaren
The Raven Sisters (1977) 17 exemplaren
The Steadfast Heart (1988) 16 exemplaren
The Impossible Ward (1978) 15 exemplaren
A Companion in Joy (1980) 14 exemplaren
The Reluctant Heart (1990) 12 exemplaren
The Belle of Bath (1981) 8 exemplaren
Come in from the Cold (1985) 1 exemplaar

Tagged

Algemene kennis

Officiële naam
McKittrick, Dorothy
Pseudoniemen en naamsvarianten
Dors, Alexandra
Geslacht
female
Nationaliteit
USA
Woonplaatsen
Rhode Island, USA
Massachusetts, USA
Virginia, USA
Opleiding
Brown University
Harvard University
Korte biografie
Dorothy Mack is a native New Englander, born in Rhode Island and educated at Brown and Harvard universities. While living in Massachusetts with her husband and four young sons, she began to combine a long-time interest in English history with her desire to write and emerged as an author of Regency Romances. The family now resides in northern Virginia, where Dorothy continues to pursue both interests.
(About the author - from The Blackmailed Bridegroom)

Leden

Besprekingen

Started skimming as soon as I realized I wasn't really going to enjoy it... just not engaging, with neither main character being very relatable. Originally published in the 70's, and it shows. Too much broodiness for no good reason.

Digital review copy provided by NetGalley.
 
Gemarkeerd
Alishadt | 2 andere besprekingen | Feb 25, 2023 |
The language is a bit overly flowery for my tastes, but I was willing to overlook it for what I was convinced was the perfect set-up for some quality angst. Despite the overwhelming need for groveling on the part of the hero, all we get is one brief verbal apology from him, and then nothing else. Even the "repair the relationship" period happens off the page, with the book skipping from their stilted reunification in October to their renewed friendship and love in December. No groveling, no earning of trust, no confessing feelings, the whole integral conflict of the story just seemed to evaporate, which is very dissatisfying considering what a pathetic and shallow ass the hero is for more than half the book! And whatever happened to her insistence that they get an annulment?! I guess she just capitulated because... he would lose his inheritance? That's not romantic at all! Overall, it's not that it is badly written, I was just disappointed, as I was hoping for a plain, insecure heroine, or at least some angst, and a good grovel from the hero, and that is just not this story.… (meer)
 
Gemarkeerd
Rhiannon.Mistwalker | 1 andere bespreking | Aug 19, 2022 |
uhhhh what the fuck?

RTC



**spoilers herein, but no big ones until the very end**

i had to take a big breather before i knew what the FUCK i wanted to write about my thoughts on this one. so i did some cleaning and got a glass of water and babbled to my poor, long suffering mother about how absolutely mediocre and, at time, horrible a book this was. i don't even know why i didn't just immediately stick this one on my DNF shelf. the promise of a nanny/widowed father relationship? i could have just dug out my DVDs of The Nanny or reread [b:The Governess Game|36111620|The Governess Game (Girl Meets Duke, #2)|Tessa Dare|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1594593376l/36111620._SY75_.jpg|57700166] by [a:Tessa Dare|2752928|Tessa Dare|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1242150259p2/2752928.jpg] (which i really enjoyed).

THE GOOD

- the prose is excellent. it's so close to actual regency prose that i found myself skimming because my brain just doesn't do regency prose.

- angelica's relationships with annie, jenny, and lydia are all wonderfully written. it's so good to see girl friendships and healthy relationships highlighted.

THE BAD

- angelica? the whole reason that this godforsaken book exists? annoying. SUPER annoying. she vacillates wildly between feeling horribly sorry for herself and being the prideful and judging the people around her. please, honey, pick one and stick to it.

- giles? our hero? distant. i couldn't even tell you what he looks like and i spent 234 pages with him. i have no idea what he likes to do. he isn't even present for a good majority of the book.

- romance? i don't know her. there wasn't a hint of romance between our two leads until about 80% through the book. i skimmed a good two or three chapters because i was like "uhhhhhhhhh soooooooo where's the kissing part of this kissing book." at first, i brushed it off as a slow burn; but when the romance finally happened it was so flat and underwhelming that i questioned the sanity of waiting roughly 150 pages in a 234 page book for a marriage proposal.

- dorothy mack is worse at scene transitions and the passage of time than i am and she was still published. good news for me, tbh.

- i don't know if it's indicative of the time period or her style of writing or whatever, but there was so much indirect dialogue and needless description that i felt like napping. so many of the scenes in this book would have been so much better if, yknow, dorothy mack had actually written them.

THE UGLY

can you tell i like westerns, yet? i'd much rather be watching a third rate western from the mid-1970s starring lee van cleef than thinking about this book. but a girl has a daily word count to hit and is full of salt. so, we're onto the ugly parts of this book, which constitute the last hundred or so pages. no bullet points for this one, because the ugliness really boils down to one thing: the romance portion of this romance novel.

note: it's come to my attention that this was first published in 1977 and blah blah blah different times but it still made me go :/

**warning: if you find sexual assault triggering, DO NOT READ BEYOND THIS POINT**

all right. so i waited 150-ish pages for this stupid thing to happen. it's gunna be good, right? haha. WRONG. angelica is highkey uncomfortable with the whole matter right from the start and, no matter how much she has a crush on him or how much she "loves" him, she Does Not Want to marry him. his aunt is the one who convinces her that she shouldn't throw away a lifetime of ease just because she doesn't want to marry him. pretty fucking lame of you, aunt minerva, if you ask me.

everything up to and including the wedding is glossed over. dorothy mack seems more concerned with describing the dresses than the actual events. which is also pretty lame of her. but anyways, the wedding happens and they're married and then... nothing. no wedding night awkwardness, no clandestine kisses, nothing.

until angelica is taking a bath a few weeks later and he walks in on her and decides to press his luck. for some random reason, giles, who has been nothing other than a gentleman this whole time, decides to take his husbandly dues even though angelica clearly doesn't want him to. uh. what??? hello???? they might not be written terribly well and i might not really know giles that well, but i do know that he really isn't the type of guy who would do this.

it was just so random and sudden and out of character that i'm pretty sure i put my phone down and had to stare at the wall for a few minutes before i reread the scene to make sure that i wasn't hallucinating it. like, what the fuck?

anyways she says no and essentially tells him to fuck off and chucks something at his head. the author has a little chuckle about "italian temperments" (read: spousal abuse added in for shits and giggles. don't throw things at your husbands, ladies.) and it just goes downhill from there.

apparently, instead of talking to his wife like a grownup, giles decides that he's going to go and get white girl wasted to forget his problems. he rejoins angelica later that evening and says (this is a direct quote, hidden because it's particularly icky):

"Don't look at me like that. It's more than time you learned what it means to be a wife, and I am just in the mood to enlighten you. [...] Well, my love, why aren't you struggling as you did earlier? I'll enjoy taming you, you green-eyed witch."


*laughs nervously* what the fuck, giles.

but she starts crying and he apparently comes to his senses and has a little cry of his own about how "boohoo i'm so sorry angelica i'm drunk af and i don't know what i'm doing!!11!!!!1!1!!one!" shut the fuck up, honestly. at this point angelica shows a lot more self control than i would. she dumps him in her bed (i would have dumped him in his own bed and them dumped him again the next morning but whatever) and crawls in with him.

hello? he just assaulted you? what are you doing???

EVEN WORSE! they start making out. and apparently they make love, but it was so not obvious that when he find out angelica is pregnant later in the book, i had to flip back to this scene AGAIN because i couldn't tell if they actually had sex or not. the whole sequence of events just had my head spinning and the only realistic part of it is when giles wakes up the next morning, thinks that he drunkenly raped his wife, and is absolutely APPALLED that he would have such a lapse of judgement, drunk or not, and fucks off to the countryside for three weeks.

TL;DR

so i gave this one two stars. one star was for the very authentic prose and the other star was for the author's descriptive abilities and because she didn't make me read the word "cock." other than that? this book was so SO not worth the two days it took me to read it. i just... cannot even express how not worth it this book is. don't bother. i don't care how cheap it is on amazon. just. don't.

anyways, onto the next!
… (meer)
 
Gemarkeerd
cthuwu | 2 andere besprekingen | Jul 28, 2021 |
I can understand why people love regency romances. ”A Companion in Joy” is my second Regency romance I read, but this time is a clean one.
For me ”A Companion in Joy” is a 3.5-stars due to the fact that there were passages that didn’t flow easily and I had to read those passages a couple of times.
The emotional development of the heroine & hero is written in a very interesting manner. Kate’s character is strong, she is decisive and at the same time, she is determined and very generous. Nicholas is also stubborn, in the beginning, the main characters are not so fond of this situation but decide to work it out. Time and patience are two things that evolve during the blooming love they feel for each other.
Even though ”A Companion in Joy” was written in 1980 it is a very compelling book. I will try to find more of Dorothy Mark’s works.
… (meer)
 
Gemarkeerd
AvigailRGRIL | Nov 3, 2020 |

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Statistieken

Werken
25
Leden
482
Populariteit
#51,208
Waardering
½ 3.7
Besprekingen
21
ISBNs
52

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