Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The whole premise of the novel is that Lady Viola has completely changed her personality after her first season in which the spoiled and selfish young girl she then was engaged in conduct that led to the deaths of twin brothers in a duel over her. The book jumps ahead 7-8 years. Viola has been banished from London to the country, has been running a very successful horse farm, has "reformed" and helps an orphanage etc. We are told all this incessantly by the author and the heroine. She whines all the time: Why can’t anyone believe that she has really changed? Well, I can tell you why. The author does not present Lady Viola in any way that remotely shows she is truly remorseful or understands what she did. The author merely tells us that the h suffers from guilt but really really has learned her lesson and is no longer selfish etc. But repeatedly the h engages in very immature and selfish conduct and there are too many "poor little me" pity-plays for the reader to believe that Lady Viola has in fact really changed. The plot has the twins' older brother Brock buying foals from the h and of course the two are immediately attracted to each other. Brock does not know that she is the woman who caused the death of his brothers because she is using a different name with him. He feels guilty because he wasn’t there when his brothers were killed but was off fighting. The relationship between the 2 protagonists was just not very believable not very enjoyable for that matter. Viola has a companion, Ruby, who lives with her because Ruby's mother can’t stand to be around her apparently. Ruby is supposedly Viola's best friend but she seems not to like Viola very much, based on the dialogue. I had real difficulties with their relationship--seemed more like constant sniping than the close relationship the author tells us they had. I was also very bothered by the conceit that Viola's father loves her very much, but he essentially agrees with his lover that Viola is to be banished for years and whenever his lover says maybe Viola cannot come back to London because of scandal., he always goes along with it. Hard to believe a father who loves his daughter the way the author tells us he loves Viola would let his lover abuse the daughter--repeatedly and nastily. And then we have a sub-plot where Viola's assistant is conspiring with the father's lover's son to start a competing business and the assistant embezzles money from Viola's business. We are never told why the lover's son picks on Viola. And the assistant stays with her for 7-8 years just to get revenge for her not liking him when she was a debutante in her first season?? And it takes these two nincompoops how many years to set this up?? Really silly. And we are told how intelligent the h is, but she doesn’t notice rampant embezzlement such that her business is ruined?? Please. All in all, the plot was missing pieces, characters were ill-drawn with the author telling us things about their characters but then having them act in a different way, there were a bunch of loose ends that never got tied up, things seemed very rushed. Word to the author--if you want us to believe what you tell us about the characters, make them act and talk in a way consistent with your sketch of their characters.