Pirates Promises (Tea Rose)

Faced with an arranged marriage to a man she despises, Bree Smythe cannot help but be delighted when she is kidnapped before the wedding, especially when she discovers that her abductor is her beloved childhood sweetheart, Justin St. Clair. Original.

Caldwell's ( Scandal's Darling ) unsatisfying offering launches Jove's Tea Rose Romance series ("our favorite writers . . . share their most romantic dreams of England"). It's an especially awkward choice as the story is set almost entirely on a boat leaving England and in Williamsburg, Va. Sabrina Smythe (unfortunately known as "Bree") is beautiful, rich and is saving herself for a childhood sweetheart named Saint Clair. Faced with the proposition of marrying Saint Clair's evil half-brother she allows herself to be abducted by a handsome Robin Hood of a highwayman whom she calls "pirate"--and is in fact her young friend grown to an unrecognizable sinewy manhood. It's an unconvincing start which unfolds into a rather tedious disquisition on the mistaken identity premise. Bree is shrill, unstable and way too immature, even for 17. If Caldwell's plot and characters need work, her dialogue is spunky--lines meant to sting, do; those meant to be funny, are.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.