I want to preface my comments with the fact that I am a true fan of historical romance. I probably read and/or listen to about 100 such books per year. What attracted me to The Rejected Suitor is that it is set in the Regency period (think the Jane Austen era).The story revolves around Jared, the Earl of Stonebridge, and Emily Clearbrook who is a Duke's daughter. Three years earlier Jared promised to marry her, but he left her without a word. Emily's brothers are committed to see her married soon, but she is too independent having served as a spy during the war.I found the premise unrealistic and the characters unbelievable. I didn't understand why Emily's father blackmailed Jared into marrying someone else three years earlier, or how his new pending engagement was relevant to the story. Also why were Emily's brothers so intent on getting her married off quickly to anyone rather than someone she loved? Furthermore, why was Emily's now widowed mother willing to see her daughter married to the man the mother still loved?Pearl Hewitt's narration was OK. I enjoyed most of her voices for the characters, but her voice for Jared was too soft and feminine-like. He should have been manly, more like the brothers. Inconsistent characters, dialogues that were muddled and rereading them did not impart more sense to them. H's resentment towards h and his disillusioned attitude towards love were rather puzzling considering h was a victim of the past as much as he himself was, and that her love was true. As for h, she was rather undignified in her reaction towards meeting him again, continuing to whine about his supposed betrayal of her and thereby revealing way too much, how much she was hurt by him. And descriptions got quite repetitive at times, because do we really need to hear multiple times how broad her 4 brothers's shoulders were? Not just were the width of their masculine shoulders rather impressive when the 4 of them shrugged together in synchrony, but individually, the shoulders were mighty on Bro1, as he turned his head to look past the vast span of Bro2's shoulders to lock eyes with Bro3 and Bro4, who stood manly shoulder to manly shoulder, their muscle-ripened shoulders provided a solid wall against which one wanted to bang one's head repetitively.
What do You think about The Rejected Suitor (2004)?
horrible writing but it was a cute story. Good read for only 99 cents
—sportygirl
