4.0 out of 5 stars
Sweet Romance
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 19 March 2018
I liked the main couple and their story. The heroine was beautiful and assertive in a very feminine sort of way. I especially liked the hero, that he was gruff rather than a silver tongue charmer, and that he was significantly older than the She. I loved how devoted he was to Bella (though I wish he had been more pro-active in fighting for his heart's desire), how indulgent he was with her, even though he tended to be tough with everyone else. And I celebrated big time that for once, it was the hero who thought he was not attractive enough for the heroine, even though he was very self-assured about everything else in his life.
However, I had a few issues with this book, thus my 4 Star Rating. This author writing style is very descriptive of even minor details (sometimes exhaustively so) and yet we are never told the eye color of the heroine, unless your consider a one time mention of her "pale gaze" a description. Yet more than once we are told, not only the eye color of the hero, but the exact shade of blue his eyes are. Furthermore, we are told the eye color of just about every male, in this story, regardless off how minor the character is. This oversight only happens with females. The only female character that has an eye-color description, is the little girl in the epilogue. In the earlier books I have read from Ms. Le Veque, she gives wonderful and vibrant descriptions of the heroines' looks, but in her more recent books (at least the ones I have read) no so much. To me this a terrible shame, I missed those vivid descriptions, I know some readers do not like them, but I personally love them. However, I'm grateful that she still describes her heroines as very beautiful.
I had a big problem with the explanation (or lack of) as to how Lily was forced into marriage. It is ludicrous to think that Dash with all his power and influence over the Duke could not have put and end to the scheming of Clayton and his father, before said scheme could come to fruition. And this brings me to Bentley (the hero in the secondary romance). I don't particularly like secondary romances that take too much page space, mainly because I like the focus to be in the main couple. But in the case of "Godspeed", I did not like the secondary romance itself. I just could not get past the fact that Bentley stood by, as virginal Lily, the woman he loved and who loved him was forced to marry a despicable man. And then he lived in the same household for two year (passively seeing her suffer) before he finally took action.
And although I would not have down-graded my review for this reason, SPOILER TO FOLLOW, I hated reading about Ajax's death. I know that a writer has a right to take his/her characters in which ever direction he/she wants, I also know that all characters (like the rest of us) will eventually have to die, I just don't want to read about it (a matter of personal taste). Especially when it came to a character that I did not want to like, but ended up loving: the hero from "The Dark Lord". END OF SPOILER
And finally unlike many (perhaps most) of Ms. Le Veque's fans I do not particularly want to read about heroes from other stories. I have two reasons for this aversion: First Reason, sometimes I have not read their stories, simply because I know by the book description and/or reviews that I would not like to read about them. Secondly, for the most part all the catching up, is only with the men, the women never figure prominently, if at all, in all these reunions. Which brings me to my last point. I prefer my historical romances to concentrate on the romance. For my taste this book had a little too much of male bonding, and prolong discussions of political/war strategies, etc.
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