LynneC’s review of Princess from the Past by Caitlin Crews
Contemporary Romance published by Mills and Boon Modern Romance 1 Feb 11
Fired by my new enthusiasm for Caitlin Crews, I embarked on this book with high expectations. Now I don’t know what to think. Is this a romance?
The story is about a marriage on the rocks. Prince Leo Di Marco has a life of privilege, and he was born into it, so he’s known nothing else. He expects, he gets. He also works hard at his hotel business. Bethany is a sheltered Canadian girl who met Leo after she has nursed her father in his final illness. She’s not indigent, but she’s young. The attraction between them is instantaneous, and they marry, something out of character for them both.
After two years of being pushed aside and expected to behave in a way that she finds difficult, Bethany leaves him, although she still loves him. Three years later Leo comes back for her. He lures her back to Italy on a pretext of giving her the divorce she’s asking for.
The characters are beautifully delineated, so that neither comes across as either stupid or jerk-y. They just find it difficult to fit, their two worlds too different. My heart bleeds for them both. Leo is honorable and hard working, and he has never known what it’s like to be what most of us would consider normal. Formal dinners, flying all over the world on business is normal for him. And his expectations of Bethany are normal for him, too. She was just too young and inexperienced to cope. Add to that the cousins who live in the castle before and made her life a misery by carping on about her not being the wife for him.
Bethany responds with tantrums. She smashes vases and china in a bid for attention. That made me understand more what is going wrong between them. She’s too young, powerless, and wanted the attention he isn’t giving her and that she has a right to expect, and he is confused and exasperated by her behavior, thinking she is behaving childishly. So he let her go and live in his house in Canada, hoping she would grow up. She did. She finishes the degree interrupted by the illness of her father and has some time to herself. When Leo comes back for her, she has more resources to draw on.
This time she doesn’t have tantrums, she tries to talk to him, only to find that he thinks they can continue where they left off. She refuses to accept that. The story has no dramatic events and is set mainly in the castle and its environs, and is all about Bethany and Leo coming to terms with each other and coping with the raging attraction they still feel for each other.
The explanations and the delving into character is done really well.
So why didn’t I like the book more? There are a few reasons that stop me enjoying it as much as Crews’ Shameless Playboy, which I ate up with a spoon. This book is angst, angst all the way, with little relief. Even their first lovemaking session is filled with foreboding and worry, as if they’re indulging in an addiction they know is bad for them. In fact, although they say they love each other, all I see is the sex.
This is a great study of a marriage in trouble, but by the end I’m not convinced that they would last. I could see divorce or separation in their future, as soon as the raging desire for sex fades a bit. I didn’t see any change in Leo’s behavior, except for a slight lifting in his formality. Maybe it is because they have only just begun to unbend. I think if there is another book, showing them building their new lives, working with each other towards the happiness they both want, it would have made for a better book. As it is, the ending is too rushed and too sudden for me to really believe that it will last.
However, it’s very well written, and a study in two people striving to come to a better understanding with each other. It gets the grade because within the constraints of the line, it’s as good as it can be. But it’s unrelenting, grinding unhappiness until close to the end. However, I’m not convinced this is a romance.
If I compare it to a book with a similar theme, Janette Kenney’s Illegitimate Tycoon, the characters in that one are more fully rounded and their happy ending more believable. But there is no doubting that Princess From the Past is well written and definitely worth your while.
Grade: B-
Summary: Behind the imposing walls of the castle, free-spirited Bethany Vassal discovered that her whirlwind marriage to Prince Leo Di Marco was nothing like the fairytale she’d imagined. Before long the forgotten princess ran away, hoping the man she fell in love with would one day see sense and come and find her… Marrying Bethany is the only reckless thing Leo has ever done, and now he is paying the price. The time has come for him to produce a royal heir – and Bethany must return to the castle whence she fled!
No excerpt available.
