Catherine Anderson: Simply Love

Simply Love: DNF
Cassandra Zarek & Luke Taggart


Set in a Colorado mining town during the 19th century, this romance brings together a truly naive heroine with the ultimate bad boy hero. If Cassandra was any more naive, she might even be simple, but it is "simply" her love that defines new meaning for Luke Taggart, a tough, impossible man of the world who is almost beyond redemption. (amazon)


I read 160 pages of this when I thought, "Are ya kidding me?"

How the heck is Cassandra so naively …stupid? And Luke is so grossly… jaded? The plan that he uses to get Cassandra to be with him is totally scum-bag-ish!!! Low! It’s really low and it makes me kinda hate his guts.

And Cassandra, for her family, chooses to go in and live with him for a year, thinking that when he meant “female companion,” he was paying her to be his friend. …doh! For’real? Are you fo’real?!

After she’s with him, he is continuously thinking of ways to get her into his bed – she, who is so stupidly innocently naïve – in his jaded, corrupt, rake-ish bed. He wants to use her for a year and then leave her… with a hefty compensation, yes, but ultimately make her unmarriageable, destroy her reputation, and uh, basically ruin her future.

What a dirtbag!

Okay, I’m sure he falls in love with her and so my predictions don’t come true. But the fact that he acts despicably because of his dick – makes him totally disgusting in my eyes.

Cassandra’s naivety just about tops off this absurdly unrealistic story (even for a romance!).

Susan Wiggs: The Drifter

The Drifter: C+

Leah Mundy is a fiercely independent female physician in the year of 1894 on Puget Sound's Whidbey Island. She has grown up without love from her father and her entire life has been a model of what she felt her father wanted. She lives on the outside looking in.

Enter our hero, outlaw Jackson Underhill, an orphan who took it upon himself to be the guardian and protector for Carrie, a girl he’s known since his orphanage days. Jackson finds Carrie and due to extenuating circumstances, is forced to flee with her. He realizes Carrie is ill and kidnaps Dr. Leah Mundy. Leah makes sure she is un-kidnapped and helps to heal Carrie and while doing so, falls in love with Jackson.

However, Jackson and Carrie are husband and wife, putting him in the off-limits zone. It is after Carrie is presumed dead that their romance comes to life.

I much prefer Wiggs’ writing style here as opposed to the other novel, The Mistress. She writes well about the emotional scarring of both Leah and Jackson and shows the growth of both characters as they learn to fight their own demons.

While there is nothing necessarily wrong with the story or the characters, I found the story to be somewhat lackluster – nothing horrible but nothing fabulous. It was a decent read, but would not be a keeper on my shelf.

Susan Wiggs: The Mistress

The Mistress: C-


Beautiful Kathleen O'Leary works as a maid at an exclusive girls school where she has been befriended by three rich students. One evening, the high-spirited girls convince Kathleen to dress in borrowed diamonds and silk and accompany them to a masquerade at the Hotel Royale in Chicago. Here, Kathleen catches the eye of the city's most eligible bachelor, Dylan Francis Kennedy, and the two are instantly attracted to each other. Fate intervenes when the two are caught in the midst of the great Chicago Fire of 1871 and, convinced they're about to die, they impulsively marry. Amazingly they survive, and Kathleen is faced with the difficult task of confessing her real identity to her new husband. To her shock, she learns that Dylan is also a fraud. Far from being a rich gentleman, he's a con artist, intent on marrying an heiress and taking her money. (amazon.com)

Taking place in 1871, Chicago, The Mistress is a tale that had a lot of potential that failed to satisfy.

I really liked the premise of the story – a maid pretending to be an heiress attracting the eye of a very handsome and wealthy man, who turns out to be a con-artist. When a blaze sets Chicago on fire, Kathleen O’Leary and Dylan Francis Kennedy are sure that they will not survive and decide to marry.

Miraculously, they survive. And they spend four (five?) nights together in “wedded bliss.” Kathleen is convinced she is in love with Dylan and because she was raised with high morals, is tremendously guilty of the situation she is now in. And all the while, Dylan is silently congratulating himself for marrying such a wealthy woman. Lo behold the shock they both receive when they find out the truth!

The story sounds great, however, the read is a bore. There was a lot of emphasis on the fire, something that I wasn’t expecting and wasn’t particularly interested in since it wasn’t able to draw me in, and the fact that Kathleen found herself to be in love with Dylan seemed foolish to me. Even after the truth came out and they agreed to stay together until they figured out how to raise money, Kathleen still believed she was in love while Dylan gave no hint to having more than a lustful attraction towards her. (Talk about a turn-off).

After the truth comes out, the rest of the story is highly anti-climatic and their plot to make money fell plenty short of being exciting.

To be read only if you’re in dire need of reading material (as in you’ve read all the labels to your canned goods and your hair care products and still have plenty of time on your hands).