At Your Request

OOOHHH, I just can't do it. I keep getting snagged in by Turano's gorgeous covers and cute synopses, and I keep hoping for some improvement in the plotting. Apparently I'm insane for doing it, too; I keep hoping for a different result and getting frustrated at the repetition of irrational plots.

The minute impoverished Wilhelmina sees the man she previously rejected as not good enough or rich enough, she dives into the midst of friends at the ball to hide from him. When he comes to greet her, she climbs under a chair! That's not the worst of it...her body gets wedged there helplessly: “...he squatted down next to her. ‘Do you think the fabric of your skirt snagged on a nail?'...‘I'm afraid I'm no longer that type of stuck, Edgar. It's more a case of my, um, parts, not exactly fitting in the small amount of space I tried to squish them into.' Well, easy fix, Edgar. Lift the chair up, and gravity will help you out. Especially since “Wilhelmina had never been a lady possessed of a waifish figure,” right? Gravity is a wonderful ally.

But her “friends” leave her lying on the floor for fully three more pages while they attempt to restrain laughs, eat sugar biscuits, and discuss the growing size of bustles in the newest fashions. In fact, Edgar squats there helpless, leaving her friend Miss Griswold to finally tug a bit on the chair, grunting ineffectually. Mrs. Travers, the hostess, comes by to ask what's going on. Discussion begins of why, which obviously Wilhelmina can't say with Edgar himself squatting there trying not to laugh (seriously, this guy has the hamstrings of an Olympian, or he'd be cramped up by now.) So Miss Cadwalader has to rescue her: “‘She's under there because of the mouse....it wasn't a little mouse, mind you, but an enormous one, with rather large teeth.'” Insert three more pages of ladies leaping onto chairs and servants rushing out with brooms.

Wilhelmina is still stuck. Edgar is still squatting near. (Shall we make that Spartan hamstrings?)

Finally, Miss Griswold tries the chair again. She squeezes Wilhelmina's hips together so Edgar can Pop! the chair off with good results: “leaving her still on the floor but without a chair attached to her.”

Having picked her up off the floor, Edgar strolls around the ballroom with her, where they spat a little and where Wilhelmina comments on the size of his muscles and pokes his arm to see how hard they are (Seriously, not kidding, guys!!) and he tells her he's come back to town to get married. Oh...and he thanks her for having rejected him.

And that's just the first couple of chapters!! Afterward we have instalove (they haven't seen/spoken to each other in seven years) and a HEA. With lots of crazy bits in between.

If you see me mark another Turano as want-to-read you have my permission to stage an intervention....at least it's free!