How I Met My Countessby Elizabeth Boylereviewed by Lyndsey LeaskJanuary 2010, 384 pages, Publisher: Avon, ISBN: 0061783498 Back Cover Blurb: The Earl of Clifton intended one day to find the perfect countess, until he met Lucy. The improper and impetuous daughter of an infamous spy, Lucy Ellyson saved Clifton's life and taught him everything he needed to know about serving his country in the dangerous shoals of the war torn Continent... even how to fall in love. He vowed he would come back to her, he would make her his unconventional and unlikely countess, but the war and duty kept them apart for too long and when he finally returned, she was gone.
Lucy's father had told her that the Earl of Clifton would never return for her, warned her that she would never find a place in a society that would scorn her birth. And he was right. For when Clifton returns, it isn't to reconquer her heart, but merely to ask for her help in finding an elusive dowager, never realizing that the Marchioness of Standon - the woman who holds the keys to his family fortune - is none other than Lucy herself. It doesn't take Clifton long to realize that his greatest mission yet may be to face the tragic secrets of their past and rediscover the passionate love that once ignited them both...
I've always loved stories about couples who have to deal with a shared past to make a new future together. I've found, though, that they seem to be hard to execute, and unfortunately, that seems to be the case with How I Met My Countess.
When Lucy Ellyson and Justin Grey, the Earl of Clifton, met for the first time, Justin had come to train as a spy under Lucy's father. The two hated each other on sight. Lucy thought Justin was an annoying aristocrat (who was, even more annoyingly, incredibly handsome) and Justin thought Lucy was an uncouth nuisance (who just happened to be stunningly beautiful).
One near-kiss and some impressive brawling on Justin's part changed everything. Lucy gave her all to preparing Justin for the tasks ahead, giving him every tool she could to help him return safely. And Justin, in the process, gave his heart into her keeping, swearing to make her his countess. The two young lovers believed that nothing, not even the ravages of war, could separate them.
Seven years later, Lucy is another man's widow and Justin is planning on marrying another woman. Each feels that they've been betrayed, and neither wants to let the other back in. But when Justin needs something that only Lucy can grant him access to, the two are thrown together again. Will the secrets from their past defeat them, or will they finally be reunited in love?
I had such hope for this story. Lucy and Justin are both truly likeable characters, and Lucy is especially interesting. I could see exactly how she caught Justin's attention, because she grabbed me from the very beginning. She doesn't just have a lack of "town bronze," she's genuinely rough around the edges and all the more adorable for it. And I could see why Justin would appeal to her - once he stopped being so condescending toward her; he was a really nice guy.
The plot had as much potential as the characters. Both Lucy and Justin felt that they'd been wronged, and there were several other secrets they needed to untangle before they could get their HEA. Boyle pulled off a neat little trick with one of those secrets and led to me to believe one thing for most of the book, only to completely surprise me when the truth was revealed.
What made the book a let-down was the execution. The story of how Lucy and Justin originally fell in love was told in one very, very large flashback that took up seven chapters and over 150 pages. I don't generally like it when flashbacks are spaced throughout the book because it makes me have to keep track of two storylines at once, but I don't think that dumping all the information into one big flashback works any better. The post-flashback part of the book was incredibly low on tension, and I found my attention wandering more often than not.
The reason that Lucy and Justin's original time together was a flashback is the story's other big weak point. You see, How I Met My Countess is the sixth book in Boyle's "Bachelor Chronicles" series. Instead of connecting this book to the others by simply using familiar characters, Boyle uses this book to set up the next few. The first chapter is devoted to establishing the premise for the next few installments in the series. This means that some characters are over-developed, since we'll be reading about them later, and some are under-developed, since they were introduced earlier in the series. Since I hadn't read any of the preceding books, these under-developed characters were incredibly frustrating.
How I Met My Countess started off as a good idea with interesting characters. Bad execution and sequel-baiting, however, truly overshadowed anything good about the book. It didn't make me want to go back and read the earlier books in the series, and certainly didn't pique my interest about further offerings. All it did was bore me.
Reviewed by Lyndsey Leask
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