Eileen Dreyer ~ "Never a Gentleman"

I have these friends you see…these online friends… and we are all incognito because we have a terrible secret. A terrible BIG secret that makes others point us out if we slip up.

But I will share it with you. Yes, I will. The time has come to come out of my closet…!

I…gasp…I…ehm. Wait. Give me a second. I will make it. Just a second.

Hm. Ehmmm. I…read cheating hero books.

There! I said it.

Now, now. Don’t get in a tizzy! I don’t like cheater books.

But I go to a library, or on a thread, see somebody talking about cheater books, raving, ranting…and I have to read it.

And rant and rave about it? No. Well, yes, but I primarily read it in order to find the holy grail of cheater books - a cheating that had a solid explanation and a  good reason to be forgiven.

Is it really necessary for me to say that I still haven’t found this mythical book?

Eileen Dreyer's Never a Gentleman (book two in the Drake's Rakes series) is not even a potential candidate, because it had the most hair losing plot & plot devices ever!

Every once in a while, I ask myself – what was this author thinking? Did she just wake up one morning, and remebered all those bodice ripper fans reminiscing the old romance historicals? Then what? She decided to get a slice of the bodice ripper fan cake?

Eh. I would have bought her a whole freaking wedding brunch just to stop her from writing this!

The heroine ~ or as I like to call her ‘The horsfaced girl with the skeletal system and personality of an ameba!’

Take a blank page. Add 50g of ditzy heroine. Hold on, hold on...how is she ditzy if we are told in the summary that she is a tough army daughter?
Aaaaand, abracadabra! Her spine is just an illusion!

She wants her cheating, but handsome handsome HANDSOME, husband at any cost! Even the cost of her pride. And integrity. And you know - life, friends or anything. Since he is handsome.

Have I mentioned this before? Well, just to be sure, he is a bucket full of masculine goodness. Naturally, all else is inconsequential.
Because of his handsomeness, it is completely understandable why the heroine just mops all over the book and the reader about how - Oh! He is so cruel! But she loves him!

Wait! Hold it! Brakes, please! No, it’s not! Sheesh! This is a romance novel! Where is the romance? There was some sex, and a patched up ending, but my heroine was 100% miserable trough the whole book! What is romantic in that?

And she…loves him? What on Earth for? He acts like a jerk and he cheats on her!! (Did you have a lobotomy, woman?)
But ok, she can not really blame him for the cheating. How could the hero love someone like her? She is plain. Horsefaced. And plain. And horsefaced. And plain. And horsefaced. And plain. And horsefaced. And plain. And horsefaced. But mostly she is plain and horsefaced.

Yes! That is her - PLAIN AND HORSEFACED!

After reading it too many times to count (No really! I think word count would brake down if I tried!) I wanted to go out on the street - all the while laughing manically - and tell people they are plainplainPLAIN!!!

Like it’s a f....ing crime to not be pretty! Guess what, Mrs. Author? You are telling your readers that plain looking women aren’t worth anything. Good for you!

And don’t you dare say how the heroine got the hero in the end. Why would she even want him? Let us be real - he is not a prize. He is an utter punishment!

The hero ~ in my world know as ‘How come Britain still stands if this loser was their best spy?’

Trough book one and now two (and three, to be frank) these elite spy’s show us how they are completely unable to find their own backside.

Hint, hint…you are sitting on it!

The country is at peril! What should we do, what should we do?

You, boy! *points finger at hero* Yes, you! Go find your ex mistress and start sleeping with her! We, the government, want you to do it! It is our half-baked plan to save what-ever-what-ever-what-ever. We also have no respect for our hard working spies and their families so we whore out penises for information!

The hero is not a happy clam. He was forced in to marriage to the heroine. Yawn!

Eeer,I mean…gasp!

Still, he falls in love with her soon enough - so him having to cheat on her? It’s really hard. Really, really hard. But he has to be hard…working and do it.

We saw just how terrible it was for him in the scene where the author treats us, trough the heroines eyes, to a mistress banging session.

He is not enjoying his French mistress to the fullest. No! He is not! Saying otherwise is utter blasphemy!

The truth is - He only has sex with other women because he wants to, you know, protect the heroine & the world from the web of spies that surround him! Buahahaha! Those villains!

He also has to be completely cruel to the woman he loves so said villains would not suspect that he cares.

He could have told her why he is being such a dick …if only this whole sex-for-info operation was not one big SECRET. Oh, the agony! The poor hero!

Not. He is an asshat and probably the worst spy in all fictional literature.

The mistress ~ aka ‘Why the hell was this woman in the plot?’

I have never seen a less developed OW in my life. And yes, I am including the nameless OW(omen) of old Harlequin romances.

A few descriptions of her pretty face and perky boobies aside, I am still at a loss over her history, future, alliances  or intentions. For a character that has such a big impact on the plot and main players she is horribly vague. The only conclusion I can get from this is that she was written in to the book for the sake of melodrama only.

The conclusion and happy ending

“There is a happy ending after all this??” - you shout in disbelief.

And I say - “Yes. Yes, there is!’” - and promptly fall of my chair laughing.

You don’t want me to spoiler the mystery for you. You really, really don’t.

The horrible behind the scene mastermind should go unmentioned - or you would be in danger of bursting a blood vessel. I know what I am talking about here! I almost had an aneurism myself - over the utter absurdity of it all.

Any way, it all works out nicely. The cheating is forgotten, the hero and heroine are in love, the main evil person discovered! No harm, no foul, hop on the train to happy delusion land! La-di-da-la-di-duuum!

Why does the hero love her, you ask?
When did he fall in love, I contra-ask?
(While she was plain or horsefaced? Maybe after tripping over his shoes and planting his penis in to an ex mistress?)
Well, the answer is:

None of this matters, because this is a fictional love story!
(Love? Where? Where? Did I miss it?)

I lie! This was NOT a romance read or love story. Just a fictional one. And a crappy one at that!