General Thoughts on Some Current Reads

Today I don’t have a proper review ready, but I do have things to say about the books I’ve been reading, so you get four mini-reviews for the price of one.

***** 

Claiming the Duchess by Sherry Thomas

Romance has the bad habit of using prequel novellas as samples, which usually backfires because novellas aren’t easy to write and they end up working as samples of bad writing. But I like Ms. Thomas’ books, so I was more than happy to read this prequel novella.

I really liked most of it, but the short length really hurt the story, because at its core there’s an act of deception and betrayal that needed more than one paragraph for the climax and ending to be satisfying and to do justice to a heroine that deserved much better. On top of that, the novella (or short story) ends around the 50% mark and the rest is promotional material, so having the book unexpectedly end when you think there’s still half of it to go, doesn’t make for the best reading experience.