LynneC’s review of Invincible (Benedict Brothers, Book 1) by Joan Johnston
Contemporary romance published by Mira 26 Oct 10

Invincible is the story of one of the children of the ‘infamous’ Bella and Bull. Bella is an English duchess who married an American millionaire (squillionaire?). Now she wants to see her children married before she dies. Since she’s 52 and her children are “all over 25,” she must have married at an indecently young age. But it’s possible. Other parts of the story aren’t so possible, but improbability piled on improbability, a preponderance of tropes I don’t like and the clunky style made me give up on this book. I’ve left the boring bit until the end, so those of you who are interested can read it, and if you’re not, then just skip it.

The heroine works for the FBI but is in danger of losing her job. She has a child, the result of one hot night with Max ten years ago. The neon lights started flashing “secret baby,” a trope I don’t hate, but I don’t like either. It has to work well to work with me. Here, it doesn’t. IMO, when a child is involved, it’s the child that’s important, not the parents. When the parents behave responsibly, I can take the trope.

For instance, when the heroine has done everything she can to inform the hero that he’s a father or when the father is presumed dead, I can go along with it, but in this case, Max hurt Kristin and she chose not to tell him about the baby. She told her daughter that her father was dead. No, just no. I can’t like anyone who puts their own feelings above that of their child’s, especially when the father is filthy rich and the child has some realistic expectation of having a more comfortable life. It’s selfish and unacceptable.

So now we have two of the tropes I don’t like. The secret baby and the big misunderstanding.

The heroine, Kristin, can afford to send her daughter to school in Switzerland. On an FBI salary? Maybe I missed something, but by then I’d begun to skim. Not just the title errors or the improbability of the whole thing (a CIA agent working with an FBI agent on a case? As partners?) but the acres of backstory. The prologue is Bella and how she wants to see her children married before she dies (my guess is that she gets a heart transplant and then reconciles with her estranged husband). I found it irritating. I didn’t care, at that point in the story.

Max? He’s a lord, he’s a world-class tennis player, he’s an intrepid ocean-going sailor, he’s a spy for the CIA. He probably does heart operations on the side (I made that one up). Yawn. Far too perfect. I didn’t believe in him. Oh, and he only uses condoms if the girl asks him to. Pardon me? Do I have to explain why I dislike that one? No, I thought not.

At the beginning there is a big scene where Max explains the plot to Kristen and how she has to help him on a case. What writers call a “kitchen table” scene. Not quite in the AYKB category, (“As You Know, Bob”) but close. And nothing happens.

Then Kristen meets her child off the plane. I don’t like stories where children play a significant part, it’s just a personal preference, but it didn’t really endear me to Kristen, who spends a lot of her time whining. At least up to this point. Already I know that Max and Kristen are going to be forced together to do this job, because, otherwise, there’s no story.

After chapter three, I started skimming. I felt obliged to read this book, as I had the galley to review, but already it had hit a lot of my hot buttons, and the style didn’t help. I just couldn’t engage with these characters.
A couple of scenes along, a new character entered, another of Bella’s children. So far, Johnston hadn’t sold me on Max and Kristen. Emma didn’t interest me, either.

I read the reason why Bull left Bella. After many years of marriage. I didn’t buy it. Basically, it was her twin in bed with her lover, not Bella. Another trope I dislike, and if Bull couldn’t tell the twins apart, even when one was pretending to be the other, he didn’t know his wife well enough. Another Big Misunderstanding.

The style of writing didn’t engage me, either. There are far too many dialogue tags for my liking, and after a while I found them intrusive. And the reader is “told” not “shown” too many things. There are too many explanations, not enough interaction between the characters and so the story, for me, became stilted and awkward. And infodumps galore.

Sorry, that was where I stopped reading. The plot contrivances didn’t persuade or convince me, and taken with the inaccuracies, improbabilities, and the tropes (child bringing a couple together, secret baby, big misunderstandings) I didn’t have the heart to go on. The clunky style, frequently stopping to explain things, the complicated plot, and the hero and heroine didn’t engage me at all.

If I’d bought the book, I’d have put it aside and read something else, probably chosen not to review it. But I didn’t, I got this book as a galley. I hate doing negative reviews, but sometimes it can’t be avoided. I searched and searched for something good to say. However, it might work for you, you might love it. I’d never say never, just make your own minds up.

Here’s “the science bit.”

Johnston has done her research, but not well enough. It floored me when she referred to Bella as “royalty” on the first page, because royal girls aren’t duchesses, unless they marry dukes. They’re princesses or nothing. Royalty is different, governed by different rules. The title of Royal Duke is totally different to that of “ordinary” ones. So I dismissed the “royalty” thing as just a silly mistake, and one we’re all entitled to, since I don’t think it was repeated.

Johnston later explains how Bella has the title:

When all the male Blackthorne heirs had died heroically during the Battle of Britain in the Second World War, Parliament had amended the Letters Patent creating the Dukedom of Blackthorne so the title would pass “to all and every other issue male and female, lineally descending of or from the said Duke of Blackthorne, to be held by them severally and successively, the elder and the descendants of every elder issue to be preferred before the younger of such issue.

Which meant that either males or females could inherit the dukedom. This prevented the title from being extinguished by the death of the last male Blackthorne during the war. It was the first time such a thing had been done since the Dukedom of Marlborough was preserved in the same way for similar reasons in 1706.

As the elder of twin sisters, his mother was the current holder of the title. Max’s eldest brother, Oliver, would succeed her as the next Duke of Blackthorne. As the eldest son, Oliver currently held one of the Duke of Blackthorne’s lesser titles, Earl of Courtland, and was often referred to simply as Courtland.

Erm no, or at least, not exactly. I wasn’t sure, so I took advice on this one. Letters Patent can’t be altered or amended, and these questions aren’t usually dealt with in Parliament, they’re dealt with by the Crown. The Marlborough title was set up that way in the first place. It was never altered. The title could have been re-created with new Letters Patent, but that’s not what it says. And all titles are subject to the laws of primogeniture. Stating a different method in the Letters Patent isn’t going to cut it. Titles are always inherited by the eldest male in direct line. Failing any male heir, then a female may be allowed to convey the title to her sons, but she doesn’t usually use the title.

Why is it so important to the story? Why bother twisting the inheritance laws to that extent? Am I supposed to be impressed that she’s a duchess? Also, I’m informed by the expert I consulted that the property wouldn’t go with the title, it would most likely be tied up in entail and go to the nearest male relative or back to the Crown.

The Dukedom of Marlborough was amended that way because the Duchess of Marlborough was the lover of Queen Anne. At that time, the Queen would have done anything for Sarah. And since the duke was a war hero, that gave her the excuse. Even the Marlborough title carries the rule of primogeniture, that only in the event of no male heirs, can females inherit or convey the title.

If Bella is British and Bull is American, then their children will carry American citizenship by birth. They would have to renounce that citizenship in order to inherit a peerage, although courtesy titles being virtually meaningless, they could use them if they wanted to. It’s just a bit pretentious. The American constitution forbids its citizens to hold anything but honorary titles. And British law forbids anyone but a British citizen from inheriting a British peerage and the land that goes with it. Which, since until recently peers were an important part of the law making process, only stands to reason, really.

Max, the hero of this book, is a covert agent for the CIA. I thought that only American citizens could join the CIA. If he’s British, and Lord Max, then he’d surely be recruited via MI6?

Yes, nitpicking, but since the author seems to want her heroes and heroines to have everything, she has to jump through some convoluted hoops to get there. And it detracted from the story for me, kept me wondering when I should have been concentrating on the heart of the story. Even if it’s possible, it’s not a detail that would make me care about the characters more, or anything that adds to the story.

And they sleep in a bed that has been slept in by Henry II. A bed over eight hundred years old? Something that precious and fragile belongs in a museum, properly preserved. And it most definitely doesn’t belong in a house designed by Robert Adam. It would make Adam revolve in his grave at great speed, this man who even designed the doorknobs in rooms he created.

There was something about jewels, but I didn’t care enough to find out. I think the jewels are supposed to bind the stories in the series together, but I didn’t get that far in. Or, in skipping yet more infodumps, I missed it.

The book reminded me of this passage from  “Alice Through The Looking Glass”

Alice laughed. There’s no use trying, she said: one can’t believe impossible things.

I daresay you haven’t had much practice, said the Queen. When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

I guess I’m out of practice.

Grade: DNF

Summary:

Bella Benedict’s five grown children are scattered around the world like a handful of precious jewels. Now she’s dying and she has one last, secret wish. To bring her children home. And to give them what she once had: a marriage of passion.Wealthy playboy Max Benedict has no interest in long-term commitment. He had his heart broken once and that was enough. Instead, he travels the world, working as a sometime spy for the CIA. When he’s asked to investigate a foreign threat against the president, he doesn’t think twice about accepting—until he hears who he’ll be working with in London.

FBI Special Agent Kristin Lassiter is under investigation and on the verge of losing everything—her savings, her job, her beloved father. So when Bella Benedict approaches her with the offer to pay her mounting debts, she’s tempted to accept. But there’s a catch—a big one. Bella wants Kristin to win the heart of her son Max, the very man who destroyed Kristin years ago. A man unaware he fathered her nine-year-old daughter. If Kristin succeeds, she’ll get the money she needs—and the priceless Blackthorne rubies Bella has offered to sweeten the deal. The only problem is, can she win Max’s heart without falling back in love with him?

Other books in this series:

Well, as much as I love reading historical westerns as much as y’all – the polite, alpha cowboy on his white horse and the town’s school marm with loads of gumption getting their HEA, but I also love reading contemporary westerns – that same polite, alpha cowboy who’s been raised right by his mama in today’s world and a more world-wise, modern heroine who can now be anything she wants other than a school marm.

I’ve not read huge amounts of contemp westerns, but I have my favorite authors who I go back to time and again, plus others I still have in the TBR mountain and know I’ll enjoy just as much when I finally read them.

1. Lorelei James is the first to come to mind. I have the best time with her Rough Riders and Wild West Boys series. The books center around the McKay and West families, and while they are definitely erotic stories, the way she weaves family with tragedy and fun and emotion with all the lovin’ going on behind closed doors, her books are always at the top of my list. Her cowboys walk and talk like they should too. No ugly western speak on any of her pages. My faves are Cowgirl Up and Ride, Tied Up Tied, and Branded as Trouble — all for three very different reasons. You can see my reviews of these three books and others of Ms. James here.

2. I discovered Catherine Anderson from the ladies at an historical romance chat group I’m in, and with her first book in her Kendrick/Coulter series, Baby Love, she hooked me not only with her storytelling and characters, but the emotion she wrings from with every book. I’m sorry to say I’ve only read a couple of Ms. Anderson’s books so far, but I know when I do pick up another, it’s going to be one terrific ride. My favorite of those few I’ve read to date is Phantom Waltz. Lordamercy, the emotion in that book will set you back a few days.

3. As good as Linda Lael Miller’s historical westerns are, her contemporaries are just as good. I loved her Montana Creeds trilogy released just recently (see my DDS review on the Creeds here) and still have her McKettrick follow-up books to read, which I know I will love as much as the original books.

4. Anna Jeffrey nee Sadie Callahan nee Dixie Cash is a one-woman force when it comes to contemp westerns. I have read her Jeffrey and Callahan books but have yet to sample her Cash stories. The few I have read so far have turned out to be pleasant surprises, especially Lone Star Woman under the Callahan pseudonym (see my review here). I have plenty more Jeffrey books to read and look forward to getting to them.

5. Though I really love her paranormals, Lisa Renee Jonesgave readers a look at another side of her writing with Lone Star Surrender last year. This is her only contemp western, but I’m hoping she’ll write more down the road.  Lisa is one of those authors who knows how to put the sizzle in love scenes whether it’s in the western or paranormal style, so more of her cowboy lovin’ would be a treat.

6. As for contemp western authors whose books I have but have not yet had the pleasure to read, there’s a few that come to mind: Jodi Thomas, Mackenzie McKade, Joan Johnston, Patrice Michelle, and if you’re in need of a guilty pleasure, Diana Palmer.

So. Have you read any of these authors? What’s your take on their books in the modern western world? Who else do you love/hate when it comes to contemporary westerns? I know I’ve not thought of a lot. Hit me with it, pardner!

If you’ve spent any amount of time swimming around the pond, you’ve undoubtedly noticed that more than a few of us have mad love for Harlequin.  We read ‘em, we review ‘em, we love them with the kind of slavish devotion usually reserved for stalkers.  So when we learned that Harlequin editor, Marsha Zinberg was doing a blog tour in honor of Harlequin’s Famous Firsts collection, we jumped at the chance to have her stop by for a visit. OK, in truth we just about fell all over ourselves.  But Marsha is made of some stern stuff, and we’re happy to report we didn’t scare her off with our borderline rabid fan girl behavior.  So, without further ado – here’s Marsha sharing with us the romance novels that got some of Harlequins “Famous Firsts” on the path to romance super-stardom!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the creation of excellence or the achievement of success usually stands on the shoulders of those who have gone before.

There was little hesitation when I asked the Famous Firsts authors about the books that had turned them on to romance, or the authors that they had particularly loved. As you may have guessed, I fell under the spell of Jane Austen in high school, and a much-thumbed school edition of Pride and Prejudice still holds pride of place on my bookshelves.

I discovered that I shared that early delight with Stella Cameron, who also loved the Whiteoaks series.

For Carla Neggers, it was The Moonspinners, by Mary Stuart, which she read when she was twelve. A short dozen years later, she had produced her own first novel.

Anne Stuart was only ten when she fell under the gothic spell of Mistress of Mellyn by Victoria Holt. She asked her grandmother for the hardcover for Christmas, and thus began her romance reading career!

Joan Johnston loved Jude Devereux’s Velvet series. She was thrilled to be the winner of an autographed copy of Velvet Angel when it was raffled off at the second annual Romantic Times convention. She only had to pay the postage! She also mentioned that Roberta Gellis’s Rosalynde series taught her to bring dimension to her characters by having them say one thing and think something else entirely.

Kathleen Woodiwiss’s The Wolf and the Dove hooked Debbie Macomber. She also loved early Harlequin romances by Ann Mather and Violet Winspear.

Linda Lael Miller wasn’t a southern girl, but she fell hard for Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. (Another favorite of mine, too!) And Judith McNaught’s Whitney, My Love followed close behind.

Lori Foster claims that school never gave her a huge love of reading, but historical romances, such as those by Johanna Lindsay, really engaged her. Then she moved on to early books of Linda Howard and Jayne Ann Krentz, and the rest is history…..

Her journalism background caused Vicki Lewis Thompson to approach an early romance by Tate McKenna as a research project. What was all this fuss about romance writing? Could she do it? She sure could, and she sure did.

Now here’s a lovely story that I just learned. Lindsay McKenna met her husband in 1972, when she was in her late twenties. Her husband-to-be took his betrothed to Genevieve, Ohio to meet his mother, and the thing she most wanted to share with her soon-to-be daughter-in-law was her Harlequin romance novels. She was particularly fond of doctor/nurse stories. Lindsay dutifully took home ten or fifteen, read them, enjoyed them, but thought she could do better. So she decided to try writing one herself. She credits her mother-in-law with introducing her to the romance industry and starting her career!

What romances do you consider “classics”? Please share your favorites with me. I’d love to know what book or author initiated your romance reading habit!

Please be sure to come visit me at Pink Hearts on Thursday, June 18 and at The Misadventures of Super Librarian next Monday, June 22! I’ve had great fun on this tour and your comments have been fascinating.

My previous blogs stops include: Bookbinge, Plot Monkeys, Blaze authors blog, Romance Junkies, Romancing the Blog, Dear Author, Cataromance, and Teach Me Tonight – a different Harlequin Famous First story at every blog.

Don’t forget that you can enjoy 16 free Harlequin novels by downloading them at www.HarlequinCelebrates.com.

Contest Alert! We’ll be giving away two Harlequin tote bags, filled with eight (!) books by some of Harlequin’s Famous Firsts!  Share your favorite classic romance in the comments, and one lucky winner will be chosen at random.  Contest ends Monday, June 22!