Title: The Untamed Bride
Author: Stephanie Laurens
Series: Black Cobra Quartet #1
Thoroughly confused by what Laurens was trying to do here
First I’ll say that I’m not a regular Stephanie Laurens reader. While I’ve read a few, though I don’t remember which, she never caught my attention enough to find a spot on my keeper shelves. But my library’s digital selection is limited, and this happened to be available. It was not a wise choice.
I was both intrigued and dismayed by the discovery that the narrator (I listened to the audiobook) was male. Intrigued because that usually means the main point of view is that of the hero, which is always refreshing. Dismayed because, personally (as a female), I find listening to a strange man describe a sex scene (which were quite drawn out in this book) makes me uncomfortable, to say the least. I realize that’s discriminatory, and I’m sorry for that, but that won’t change that it makes me uncomfortable. Now, the narrator–Simon Prebble, I believe–was undoubtedly talented as a voice actor, but I wasn’t very impressed. While his presumably native English accent lent the story more authenticity, he pronounced some words in ways different than I knew them to sound. I don’t know if it was just English vs. American pronunciations, or if he was simply unfamiliar with the words, but it was rather distracting. Particularly halting was how he pronounced the word wh*re. Instead of “hor,” he said “hoorrrey.” Maybe that’s a historical fact about the word that few know, but it drove me insane. Additionally, he didn’t seem to distinguish between speakers very well, aside from using accents. Unless he was named, I had a hard time identifying which male character was speaking–and even Deliah’s voice was pitched rather low on occasion. It probably didn’t help that the sheer volume of male characters–characters in general–were many.
Now, to the book. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a longer prologue. I assume it wasn’t made a chapter because it was the prologue to the overall series, not just this book. Regardless, the introduction, where the governor-general is explaining the situation of the Black Cobra to the group of men, did not engage me. But I was patient and gave the book the benefit of the doubt and let it carry on. The rest of the prologue, i.e. the various times the men met in a bar-pub-tavern–whatever they were called in early 19th-century India–was a bit more engaging. I’m not sure what purpose the presence and death of the character McFarland served, other than drama and to add unneeded fuel to the others’ avenging fires. They’d all seemed motivated enough to do it for humane reasons. With tweaked circumstances, one of the four could have picked up that letter at any time. Maybe McFarland’s sacrifice will play into that niece, Emily’s, story; I understand she’ll be the heroine of book 2. Perhaps it was an unfortunate way of giving cause to her involvement. Speaking of, I was surprised she wasn’t the heroine of this first book. Laurens went to the trouble of introducing her and making it very clear she would be involved, then put her on a shelf to wait her turn.
On that thought, this book seemed a collection of unnecessary scenes and events. They were the stilts propping up a contrived romantic subplot Laurens had shoe-horned into her real plot, that of taking down the Black Cobra. Which is a HUGE red flag–if a romance author’s romantic plot takes a backseat to the larger suspense plot, she’d best be rethinking her priorities. That’s not to say romance and suspense can’t cohabitate–but then the book, the series, should have been marketed very differently. The first thing that comes to mind is swapping out the fanciful covers and titles for darker, more sinister themes, like other romantic suspense novels. Not to mention giving her romantic plots a little more effort…
Examples of unnecessary scenes were many that took place in the Cynster’s “palace,” particularly when they were snowed in and everyone was biding time. That exposition seemed indulgent to loyal readers who were familiar with previous protagonists, but to me, it was rather an irrelevant clusterf*ck. If it had been only one couple who guest-starred, fine, that’s cute, but there were like, half a dozen, plus their children and entourage of nursemaids and servants. Way too much to follow, and the men’s numbers were only needed for the climactic scene. A time-wasting plot device, really, the lot of them. It occurred to me that on the cover it said First of a New Series! Um, not. If anything, it’s a spin-off of the Cynster novels. But I digress, that’s a whole other problem I have with Laurens.
The pointless scenes that irritated me the most were the ones from the point of view of the Black Cobra’s sons–or that’s who I concluded they are. Why on earth did Laurens start out leaving them unnamed, just referring to them by vocal tones? There was no point in doing that. Their purpose was merely to intrigue the reader with weak cliffhangers and give insight into the enemies movements, which I easily understood without those scenes. It introduced inconsequential characters, adding more villains to the myriad of local thugs, cultists, and whoever Larkins was. There was a point about halfway through when Del kept talking to Tony and Gervais about Larkins, and I was like, Who the h*ll is Larkins? I must have missed his introduction to the story, or perhaps it was sprung on me, which is strange because he turned out to be the main villain in this leg of the overall plot. You’d think his role would have been made very clear, but he got lost in the shuffle.
Lastly, I didn’t need to hear the scenes from the Indian boy’s point of view. While they endeared me to him and gave Larkins something to do, they added nothing I couldn’t have been told when they finally discovered his deception–which I have a hard time believing went undiscovered as long as it did.
As for the hero and heroine, I did not connect with them. There was no way for me to relate to Del, and I only shared Deliah’s self-consciousness over being a “different” sort of woman that saw much disapproval from family. They didn’t seem to connect much with each other, either; their relationship was based mostly on attraction and the (quickly) resultant sex. Those elements, in addition to the cultists, also made up their thought processes for the most part. They seemed like one-dimensional, cookie-cutters characters, nothing made them unique. While they were–mostly–likable people, they weren’t memorable.
There were a few specific points that stood out to me as detrimental to the characters. First, Del thought at one point that Deliah could be domineering, if he let her be…as he was carrying out the plan she’d come up with–because his sucked. LET her be? You’re fooling yourself, boy. She’s already got you by the balls. Which relates to the second moment, where they’re (finally) traveling to the Cynster place, and Deliah explains to them how stupid their (current) plan was, and comes up with one that not only works, but does them a favor. I love smart heroines who are a force to be reckoned with, but I feel like Laurens provided Deliah with convenient opportunities to demonstrate her wits, at the cost of Del, Troy and Gervais. These three are supposedly such skillful, cunning, powerful military men, and SHE had to come up with the plans? If I were her, I wouldn’t have been able to take any of them seriously, and would not have felt safe with them as protectors–especially considering they weren’t avoiding trouble, but inviting it. Those guys were flying by the seats of their pants. Thirdly, another knock against Del: just because Deliah wasn’t a virgin, he kept calling her a wh*re. I think he was supposed to be teasing, but it was not at all funny. And this was long before he even bothered to ask her why she was not a virgin AND not married. It was quite an assumption to draw, considering he knew Deliah was a lady and worked hard to be respectable. She didn’t appreciate it, either, thank goodness, and called him on it.
Lastly, for as many times as Waterloo, East India Trading Company, and the Peninsula were mentioned, I felt like I needed to pause and read up on European history in order to begin to understand Del and every other male good guy in the book. I figure if Laurens was going to name-drop those events as much as she did, make them such an integral part to their personalities, she should have somehow worked in a little explanation (as my education in European history is sorely lacking). She could have made it a scene developing Del and Deliah’s relationship, having Del tell her about his friends and why they were his friends, how their occupations and shared experiences shaped them as people.
You know, I didn’t think I had all that much to say about this book. I almost didn’t review it at all. Obviously I had major problems with it, upon closer examination. I was debating whether or not to continue reading the series, but now I think I’ve convinced myself it’s not worth the trouble. It appears I remain unimpressed by Laurens.
