AngieW's February TBR Challenge - A New-to-Me Author
Title: Yours Until Dawn
Author: Teresa Medeiros
Year published: 2004
Why did you get this book? I am a huge historical fan. I can't believe that I have never read anything by her before. As a humongous fan of Lisa Kleypas and Julia Quinn, among others, she seemed a natural extension.
Do you like the cover? Covers usually aren't a huge plus or minus for me, but this one is actually quite pretty.
Did you enjoy the book? For the first 3/4 of the book, yes, thoroughly. This was the story of a proud man injured in war, blinded, abandoned by his fiancee while he lay injured in hospital, written off by his family as a "cripple" and embittered by his experiences. Yes, an oft told story, but I thought this might be different. Samantha, our heroine, doesn't take any crap from our hero Gabriel. She strives to give him pride in his own accomplishments, to prove to himself he can contribute productively. He does his best to prove her wrong; of course, proving her right in the process. The entire time, he is striving to discover whatever it is that she is obviously hiding. We, the reader, are kept in the dark as much as the hero.
That is, until the last quarter of the book when we discover...
that Samantha is actually Gabriel's long lost fiancee, who left the hospital in shock one day and came back the next to discover he was gone.
This book would have been so much more rewarding for me had Samantha been who she seemed - a down on her luck woman with no connection and nothing specifically to prove to Gabriel, and had Gabriel been able to put the past behind him and come to Samantha as a whole, recovered man - able to get over the abandonment of his fiancee and realize his worth in his own right.
Was the author new to you and would you read something by this author again? She was new to me, and I had heard nothing but good things about her. I enjoyed much of the book, and do enjoy her genre, so would be willing to give her another shot at it.
Are you keeping it or passing it on? I will most likely be donating this one to my local library with my next batch.
Anything else? Not much else to say. I was quite disappointed by the plot "twist" at the end, in this otherwise frequently done "beauty and the beast" storyline. I'm a pretty forgivcing reader, and am going to giver her another shot at it. If my next Medeiros novel doesn't impress me more, I think she will have lost me. So if any of you out there have a great suggestion for my next TM read, lay it on me!
I read historicals probably less than I read anything else (although I do read at least a couple each year) and this wouldn't be the type of historical that would interest me, so I've never read it.
ReplyDeleteI have read this author though, she released a vampire historical last year (and I think the sequel to that book since). I recall enjoying that book and not hating her writing style, so you should give her another chance.
Oh, and I'm dying to know how you did the scrolling spoiler warning!! I want one for my blog!
LOLOL... the HTML tag is < marquee > without the spaces, Angie. Then you put the text you want (I think I put SPOILER in about 5 or 6 times before I closed the tag).
ReplyDeleteI must admit, this was a pretty darn stereotypical historical. I was disappointed because I had heard such good things about her, too. I will be on the lookout for other books of hers so hopefully she won't disappoint me again :)