Apr 7
Started reading The Rocks of Valpre. One would think it would be pretty good, judging by how many of her other books mention the characters in it, but boy, does it start out boring! This isn't the first time I tried to read it. Chapter one is an English girl playing on a beach, her thoughts including a scorn for Frenchmen, then she meets a very handsome one with a pencil moustache. Um... that's nice and everything, and I hope if she likes him she's able to keep him. But there's just zero interest about that. Seriously, Way of an Eagle starts with the heroine's father picking her protector as being the one man willing to kill her-- interest! Bars of Iron starts with a death, and then a dogfight and a dousing. Keeper of the Door starts with the heroine being so irritated at the hero that she jams a needle into his hand on purpose, where it breaks off. Whoa. But meeting a pretty Frenchman? I'm not into pretty young men of any nationality so thanks all the same. I might make myself read another chapter just because I like Ethel Dell so much.
Apr 14
Done reading Rocks of Valpre. Magnificent in the middle and I couldn't put it down for half a moment in anxiety as to how it would turn out, but now that it's over I'm back to disliking it. I'd say that dingbat heroine didn't deserve the man who got her :-/
Hehe, well it was great in the middle, and such fun to complain about it afterwards!
