Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I bought this book because I like the Montgomery/Taggert family books and I like doing things in chronological order, so I decided to start with book number 1. Sigh. I literally had to read to the last chapter to find out WHY this is considered a Montgomery/Taggert book. I'll save you the trouble: it's because the inevitable baby to seal the happy ending is christened Montgomery. That's it. I give this book a 2 because of implausible drama and incorrect pseudo middle English grammar ('twere it possible, etc.). Spoilers: Did you know noble women bathed strange men in the middle ages? The hero becomes convinced that his betrothed has been unfaithful so he rapes her on their wedding night. No harm done. She's a plucky heroine. After he kills the insane boy he thought she loved, she tells him she wishes she had never married him. During this scene "Ranulf's hand swung and hit her across the mouth, cutting her lip and sending her sprawling." He tells her they'll get divorced. She cries because there will be no more opportunities to prove she loves him. Eye roll. More implausible drama: To prove her love to him, she disguises herself as a serf and follows him to battle and has to follow the orders of a woman who happens to be a past-her-prime Saracen belly-dancer. The dancer of course chooses Lyonene (the heroine) to learn the dance and go to her husband's tent wearing nothing but a skimpy outfit and lots of makeup. This "disguise" makes him not recognize her. When she realizes he wants to bed the dancer and not her, she flees from the tent, hurt and rejected. Sigh. Note: she's not upset because her husband is willing to be unfaithful. She's upset because he's attracted to someone else, not her. Lyonene, get yourself a backbone. Anytime her husband tells her to stay put and out of danger, she of course puts herself at great risk, usually to save him. He's going off to war? She'll follow him. He goes out at night to rescue shipwrecked people in a storm? She'll follow him, even though she's pregnant. The book does have some amusing dialog, and it's well edited (only found three typos in the Kindle edition). However, I rolled my eyes so much reading this, they hurt. I kept wanting the characters to behave in logical ways. Well, on to better Devereaux books.