This RITA® Reader Challenge 2017 review was written by B Bradley. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Short Historical category.

Here is B. Bradley's review:

Texas: Yeehaw! I put on my cowboy boots, poured a nice margarita (rocks, of course), and played me some Lyle Lovett. I was all set for my RITA Reader Challenge: historical romance in a small Texas town so quirky it has TWO TIME ZONES!

I settled in for a good read, but a third of the way in, I was mystified. The hero was described as distinguished looking, and tall, and distinguishably tall, but why weren’t we hearing about his firm, perfectly rounded buttocks, or the intriguing bulge that sat just to the side of his (ahem) holster? Shouldn’t his muscles ripple under the thin cotton shirt as he reached by the heroine for his reins? Where were all the tingling nether regions? WHY WEREN’T THE REGIONS OF THE NETHER A-TINGLE?

I did a Google search using the book title and noticed for the first time descriptions like “sweet,” “kissing-only” and “chaste.” (I prefer “chased,” preferably followed by “caught.”) In my rush to claim a historical, which I blame in part on my employer’s firewall, cock-blocking me until very few choices were left, I had inadvertently selected a G-rated book.

I am not a stranger, however, to less racy romance novels (Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt being two of the authors I cut my teeth on) so I adjusted my expectations accordingly.

The plot: Meg is (as you may have surmised from the title) jilted at the altar by her fiance, whom she has known since childhood. Her father, outraged by the slur on the family honor, decides to sue the fiance for breach of promise. Meg isn’t wild about the idea—mainly because she never really wanted to marry the childhood pal in the first place–but her dad, with his typical 19th century “I know best because I have a penis” mentality, files the suit anyway. And who is opposing counsel, but the intriguing new attorney in town (who also happens to be the guy that Meg ran into—literally—right after the jilting). Oh yeah, and the marriage was important to the whole town because it was going to end the Time Feud.

Let’s start with the Time Feud. Fun fact: before standard time zones were implemented, localities calculated their own individual time “zones” based on the sun’s position, and those times often differed from each other significantly. In this particular Texas town, two competing time zones exist as an outgrowth of some mysterious feud between Meg’s father and another Time Lord local resident. You may think it’s 2 p.m. and govern yourself accordingly, while the family across the street thinks it’s 1:15 and governs themselves accordingly. For this reason, the town is named “Two Time” (which is unfortunate, as it sounds as if its residents commit chronic infidelity). We are told that if Meg marries the son of the local resident (a.k.a. her childhood pal), the Time Feud will end and everyone will agree on a single time zone for the town.

While the time zone stuff was an interesting factoid, I didn’t understand why two rando guys got to decide the time for everyone else in the town. Having two time zones creates a lot of inconvenience for the town’s residents, and comes with a potential for disaster (ultimately realized in a train wreck, caused because two trains are running on different times). When an explanation for the feud between the two Time Dictators is finally offered, it’s pretty silly and ends up as one of those “if only they had discussed it like rational adults” faux-conflicts. Which led me to feel as though this was just a contrived way to create an external reason why Meg has to marry the other Time Feuder’s son. As my kids would say, this plotline is a Try-Hard.

It might have been easier to get past the Time Feud if the love story between Meg and …. what’s his name? Gary? Glenn? – Grant! rang true. To have a love story substantial enough to hang a novel on, I need to get some feelz as the couple interacts and starts to get to know each other. I never felt like I got to know Meg or Grant as individuals, and certainly not as a couple. Part of this is due to pacing. The first third of the book moves slowly in terms of the relationship: after a quick meet-cute (-ish), there isn’t much time where Meg and Grant are together. I don’t want to wait until a third of the book has passed before I see some real-deal interaction between hero and heroine. Even after the couple start to see each other more frequently, they are only seeing each other: one of them is watching the other do something (NOT LIKE THAT, THIS IS SWEET AND CHASTE). While they do render each other breathless a good deal, I question whether hypoxia is a sufficient basis for a relationship.

At the same time, a metric shit-ton (A metric shit-ton is, of course, larger than an imperial one) of other plot lines are shoved in there and left hanging. Some of these move the plot forward – a heart attack interrupts a crucial argument, a train accident stops a wedding, for instance (which leads to a whole ‘nother issue, namely why so many external events are required to move things along). Alas, too many of these subplots served no great purpose in the overall story: the sister’s suffragette story line, the other sister’s infertility, the jailbird about to get hanged, and so on….

There were other aspects that turned me off – a flatness to the characters, stereotypes, awkward dialogue (even if it is the 1880s, calling your kid “dear daughter” in everyday conversation is bizarre)—but what struck me most of all as I slogged through the book was the realization that I just didn’t like the town of Two-Time or its residents. Meg’s father was a complete douche, manipulating her life for his own Time-Feudy ends, screaming abusively at his family, faking heart attacks to get his way. Meg’s mother was asleep at the wheel until the last 10 minutes, and then just forgives everything, even though forgiveness is a big ask under the circumstances.

And instead of finding the band of eccentric villagers to be charming and whimsical, I thought they were dicks. Look at the day-to-day in this town: two men trying to make even Time Bend To Their Will; 50 bazillion clocks ringing and chiming twice each hour; a judge who is severely hearing impaired but rules on cases that deeply affect peoples’ lives without having all the facts; a father forcing his daughter to marry someone she doesn’t love, and then insisting she go through with a highly public and embarrassing lawsuit for his own purposes; a dogcatcher who petnaps people’s licensed pups; a scattered woman who lets her cat climb trees then insists people “rescue” her cat while getting scratched to pieces. That’s not quirky—it’s obnoxious.

We are told early on in the book that Grant came to Two-Time because his beloved twin sister, who died shortly after childbirth (another mostly-abandoned plotline), urged him to move there, saying he would love the town as much as she. For most of the book, Grant (like me) just doesn’t see it. But wait, we’re supposed to become enraptured with Two-Town because…. when a train wreck happens, the townspeople help the wounded, thus proving it’s a small town with a heart. I have a theory that you learn more about someone by the way they act every day than on unusual occasions. Of course the townspeople care for the wounded; that’s what human beings do in a crisis. (Also, wounded people moan a lot which makes it hard to sleep at night.) But the day-to-day in Two-Time (soon to be One-Time?) looks a lot like self-absorption and bad manners. (Keep your kittycat in the house, dumbass, and make the damn judge use his ear-trumpet, already.)

I can put up with a lot in a book if I like the characters, and the setting and storyline pull me in. And I certainly don’t mind an offbeat premise if the novel is well-written and engaging. None of that was the case here. Left At The Altar was a slog to finish and left me without that exhilarated feeling I get when a good story ends with a HEA. I think Texas – and Lyle Lovett — deserve better than this.