I honestly wonder if this book came from the past, the far, far distant past where brutal behavior, ripping of bodices, and complete idiocy in response to those first two were the norm. My jaw dropped open more and more as I read it.

To say that Phinn Hawkins (that’s the heroine) has had a very unconventional upbringing would be a honking huge understatement. Her father was an eccentric tinkerer and general dreamer. Her parents split up, and she stayed with her dad on Honeysuckle Farm, where his family has been tenant farmers for generations. The farm itself isn’t much in the farming way, and the land is used more as a repository for various unfinished tinkering projects from Phinn’s dad. Phinn herself gets a job in town – quite a drive from the farm – as a secretary after her mother moves out, and takes on the responsibility of basically supporting her father. Phinn adores him and admires him and accepts no criticism whatsoever of her dad.

Until Ty Allardyce buys the estate, and wants them off Honeysuckle Farm. A series of unfortunate people enter and exit in the first two chapters to create a series of troublesome events that result in Ty’s intense dislike and distrust of Phinn. That dislike is based in part on misunderstanding and on blatant presumption that because, for example, she is a female and related by blood to another female, she’s equal in moral flaw and general asshattery to that other female. Haven’t seen that one in awhile – “She’s related to that awful whore so she must be an awful whore, too!” Way to inspire my confidence in your ability to not be a dickbag, there, Ty. Ty’s a hotshot London financier, pin-striped from tip to toe… who thinks one soggy, wicked uterus is just like another!

I’m honestly having trouble organizing my thoughts to fully express the WTFHUH that is this book. Here, have a list.

1. The heroine has a horse, an elderly horse who is skittish and fearful and terribly expensive. I’m someone who has spent ridiculous amounts of money to care for elderly animals, and even *I* wondered why this girl was doing so much for the horse – there wasn’t nearly enough explanation as to why the horse was so important except that it was. There was a TON of backstory of Phinn’s family but not nearly as much explaining how the horse became such a visceral part of her life. Thus I never quite understood why Phinn should do all of these crazy things to help her horse, including moving into a one room apartment above a stable where her horse could be kept, and thought she was being blindly fixated on a horse instead of her own life.

I guess it was supposed to make her seem unselfish but really it made her immature. I never escaped the image of Phinn as terribly, awfully earnest and blithe and innocent like she was 15 and all that combined to make her seem stone stupid. When the romance started happening, I was squicked to the extreme. There is such a thing as too much innocence, and she totally had more than her share. Her determined ignorance wandered way over the border into cluelessness to the point where she seemed so young the thought of her having sex made me kinda ill.

2. The hero development followed the same route until the end:

I have a boner for her. AM ANGRY BONER HERO.

She has done something that I can interpret as revealing her crappy moral character. ANGRY BONER HERO IS ANGRY WITH BONER.

I will get angry at her even though I’m grossly misinterpreting the circumstances. ANGRY BONER HERO STILL HAS BONER AND IS ANGRY.

Something will happen to reveal that perhaps I was a tiny bit not entirely correct. ANGRY BONER HERO IS STILL ANGRY WITH BONER.

She has done something that I can interpret as revealing her crappy moral character. Again. ANGRY BONER HERO IS ANGRY WITH BONER.

I will get angry at her even though I’m grossly misinterpreting the circumstances. ANGRY BONER HERO STILL HAS BONER AND IS ANGRY.

I will not learn that perhaps I am routinely misjudging her based on the flimsiest of circumstances despite multiple examples of my wrongheadedness. ANGRY BONER HERO IS A GODDAM MORON.

Seriously – she’s related to a thoughtless hobag, so she must be a hobag, too. She’s the daughter of someone who wasn’t terribly responsible, so she must be irresponsible, too. The sins of everyone else must be shared by this girl because she breathes the same air so she must be of absolutely horrific moral quality and a danger to everyone, particularly Ty’s brother.

3. Ty’s brother is actually an interesting character – he’s suffered a complete emotional breakdown twice, so Ty is unwilling to allow him to stay by himself. But breakdown brother has to manage the estate they own – including Phinn’s family farm and another farm up the road.

When Phinn saves breakdown brother from drowning in the local pond and earns brother’s trust and a smidge of Ty’s respect, Ty asks her to move into the manor estate house to be a companion to his brother. But of course Ty can’t TELL his brother she’s his companion. Poor brother with his fragile hold on his emotions has to continue to believe that the real reason for Phinn’s presence is that Angry Boner Hero has a massive angry boner for the heroine.
Which he does but he disguises it badly as aggressive hurtful asshat behavior.

4. The worst is when he comes upon his brother kissing the heroine on the cheek after she’s woken up in bed, feeling emotionally and physically awful herself. What does he do? Gets all pouty and rips her pajama top down her arms because she’s supposed to feel lust only for him.

Gee, what am I as the reader supposed to feel? Admiration for his strength and take-charge attitude? I’m more in the mind of feeling like I want to grab the nearest fireplace shovel and bang him on the head with it twenty times.

It’s amazing how crossing a line affects my impression of a book. The heroine crossed the line into idiocy and spinelessness so many times, and I could tolerate that. I didn’t enjoy it, and I wouldn’t have given this book higher than a C with her involvement because she repeatedly took so many unneccessary and selfish risks, but I could keep reading with some interest. Maybe she’d wake up and realize her own idiocy and have a big huge makeover.

The characters reduced this story. There was unending backstory revealed in the first chapter (HOLY INFODUMP BATMAN) and as a reader I was asked to serve a ridiculous amount of understanding in order to find her character palatable. I found her to be dim and found the excuses for her behavior frustrating. But his pajama top ripping attempts at seduction by force nearly made me shriek. There was no redeeming him after that. She was an idiot. He never learned from his actions, and she didn’t learn much of anything, except that she might want to question her own judgment now and again since she thinks the sun rises and sets on a bunch of morons – her intended included.

I would rather have read breakdown brother’s story – he was much more interesting. As Jane has said, the asshole/doormat ratio was a huge factor in this book, and the degree to which these two were out of balance made this book, which due to the setting and the potential conflict of farmer/landowner I was very curious to read,thoroughly unpalatable.