Title: By Royal Command- Author: Laura Navarre
- Series: N/A
- Genre(s): Historical
- Publisher: Carina Press, July 2012
- Source: NetGalley ($4.16 ebook)
- Length: 274 pages
- Trope(s): Widow, Alpha Male(s), Beta Hero, Big Misunderstanding, Simile Sex, Hair Fetish, Evil Royal Relation
- Quick blurb: Newly widowed niece of King Ethelred (he of the Unreadiness) is forced into a betrothal with a Norman nobleman – but she’s distracted by the large and tawny Viking assigned as her escort.
- Quick review: The author has a thesaurus, and she knows how to use it.
- Grade: D
Grappling with savage urgency in a riot of tumbled cushions, she plunged headlong into rapture in the arms of her wrathful angel.
Status Updates: Read With Me Vicariously
You can tell by the dates that I avoided writing this review.
- 09/12 – 40%: “…the curving shell of secrets nestled between her thighs” o.0
- 09/13 – 42%: This book is much more Bodice Ripper than I anticipated….
- 09/13 – 58%: The metaphors. EVERYTHING is a water, fire, weather or war metaphor. And the interjections. By Odin’s smelly underpants, the INTERJECTIONS! Lots of references to Odin and Thor, but no Loki yet. Heroine prefers to invoke St. Cuthbert and St. Wilfrid.
- 09/14 – 65%: The book that will never end. I made it this far, but this is taking WAY too long to finish.
- 09/15 – 78%: Still not done… *whimper*
- 09/17 – 100%: Finally finished, and I still haven’t quite distilled why this didn’t work for me.
When I finally started the distillation process, I had to put the crankypants on.
The writing style….
I can’t really call it the author’s “voice,” because I never really heard one. Instead, I felt bombarded with every literary device we learned in junior high language arts class. Action verbs. Adjectives. Metaphors. Interjections. Euphemisms. Rinse. Repeat.
As he fitted himself against her, an epiphany burst within….
She opened herself to the storm of sensation, reached for him with both arms as he surged inside to fill her. Their joining brought him toppling down on her, in the blazing splendor of the archbishop’s bed. He gripped her in the same desperate clutch, held her moored against his rapid thrusts. Her tight channel stretched to accept him, ripples of pleasure pulsing through her. Blindly, she struggled toward the conflagration.
Without warning, it ignited her. She dug her nails into his sinewed back and clung with all her strength. The cataclysm flung her high, outside herself, as he went rigid in her arms.
The hundreds (literally) of other examples can be grouped into thematic categories, including:
