Review: The Earl Not Taken

The Earl Not Taken by A.S. Fenichel
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

DNF at 40%.

I started reading this four months ago and at first I really enjoyed it. The idea of four young women, friends from school, looking out for each other is society is not a new one, think of Lisa Kleypas's Wallflowers series.

Poppy Arrington is a bit of a modern woman shoved into a historical novel, she has been put off marriage by the bad examples she has seen and she is determined to remain single, when one of her friends is about to be married to a Duke that none of them know she determines (in the best Nancy Drew tradition) to investigate on her friend's behalf.

Poppy's nemesis is Rhys Draper, an early encounter where Poppy stumbled upon Rhys and a young woman indulging in some afternoon delight has coloured their entire relationship, added to which he is the older brother of one of her best friends.

Rhys cannot believe that he was oblivious to his sister being abused by her husband, now he understands Poppy's desire to ensure that nothing similar happens to their other friends. Together the two of them will investigate whether this duke is hiding a secret.

So far, so good. I love an enemies to lovers historical with a determined heroine and a strong, but mistaken hero. Poppy looks down on Rhys but when they meet again years after their first encounter Rhys starts to look at Poppy in a different way.

Then it all went a bit off the rails for me. Poppy and Rhys go off into the country to investigate the Duke and end up having to stay the night with a mysterious Middle-Eastern gentleman. This jarred with the way in which young women had to behave at that time, then Poppy rescues the man's horses from a burning barn while all the men just stood around and watched. I could just about get over that, but then Poppy asks Rhys to teach her about sex, to make love to her just once so she understands what it is all about.

From a promising start this just degenerated for me, then I started to find the characters' speech a bit false and forced and that was the final straw.

Sorry, not for me.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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