Issued to the Bride: One Navy SEAL by
Cora Seton
My rating:
1 of 5 stars
DNF at 26%.
I wasn't expecting the next Booker prize winner from this book, just some light SEAL turns cowboy romance. What I got made my blood boil so much that I had to DNF for the sake of my blood pressure.
General Reed has five daughters, after his wife died he couldn't bear to return to the ranch so he left the girls with a series of female guardians and ranch foremen to look after them and the ranch. Understandably peeved by effectively losing both parents the girls acted out and drove each and every one off the land.
Now the misogynist dinosaur has decided that (rather than actually go and see his children) he will find the girls husbands by selecting a group of former SEALs/ army guys etc who have blotted their copybooks with the services and giving them a carrot a stick - marry my daughters or get dishonourably discharged, but hey you get one-fifth of a huge ranch. He has also had these guys working for weeks in a room decorated with montages of each of the daughters at their various hobbies interspersed with photos of the ranch - basically trying to subliminally get these guys interested in his daughters before he issues his ultimatum.
There is also a ludicrous plot involving the dead mother and one of the sisters having second sight and a maze with a stone obelisk at its heart which answers peoples questions.
First, all of the girls appear to have no sense whatsoever, four of them act like children and expect Cass the eldest to be a surrogate mother (cooking, cleaning, running the ranch, repairing the house etc) while they do whatever they please. Cass on the other hand enables this behaviour by picking up after them and hiding the truth from them. Each and every one is either dating a cheater/ loser/ waster/ thief/ moocher or has just been ripped off by one.
The first victim of the General is Navy SEAL Brian Lake, his father and brother are moochers who have disappointed and let down their wives, he thinks it's a genetic fault and vows he will never do the same to a woman. But when the General dangles the bait of a beautiful woman who likes cooking and other domestic tasks (upchuck) and a share of ranch he's all in.
First, the General irritated me beyond belief, too much of a coward to face up to his problems like a man he hides behind employees and blackmailing men under his command.
Second, Cass and the other women were ridiculous caricatures: the mother-figure, the fey artsy one, the teen rebel etc.
Third, Brian is the sort of man who thinks women are Madonnas or whores, he's content to sleep with lots of pretty women but they're not marriage material, only Cass has that"open, fresh, healthy country glow that told a man this was a woman you could make a life with" - really? No woman thinks like that, except Cora Seaton apparently, when looking at a man.
Fourth, Brian seems to think he can waltz up to the farm to repair the house (cunning ruse, not) on the General's command and have some authority, he thinks that the women are undermining his authority. He's too much of a gentleman "to dump one of the women out of their chairs, or to demand to be served". Really? You foist yourself on people uninvited, you tell them you are staying in the house without their consent and now you expect to eat their food, again uninvited? And given that he has not been invited to eat with them his attitude is frankly appalling. The correct response is 'may I have some food?' not just assume you are entitled to eat - what if Cass had cooked five steaks instead of a stew - would he have assumed he could have just eaten one of the girl's steaks?
I can see Brian is going to save Cass, save the ranch, etc but frankly the misogyny and the woo-woo gave me indigestion so I'm tapping out.
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