365 Days of Books

Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I liked this book at first; it was looking like a 3 star read. I was reading the Kindle version on loan from my local library. It had some issues: timing seemed off to me where things took a few days but felt like a few weeks, the brother starts off the book having spent time at court but half-way through the book has no skills and defers everything to his sister. The misunderstood communication between the couple was predictable, at the end she says her court raised children are going to have a chance to be free like her because she will ensure 1 week a year to run barefoot in the mountains (eye roll - that's not how it works). But it was a nice read so 3 stars. Then I read the extras at the end of the book, the "inserts"written for the LiveJournal community. These inserts totally undermined the heroine of the story and her relationship with the love interest. Oh, he thought she was cute, he took her along on the adventures because he liked her, she wasn't really doing any good action - it was all puffed up by him, he kept important knowledge from her for no good reason, he talked down about her to others, he was so disrespectful about her that I wished that in the story she had kicked him a few more times, their relationship is what she originally thought - he thinks her a dangerous idiot with no skills and he is taking care of her, their relationship is a puffball and will fail and I hope she sucks up her self-esteem and kicks him off his throne to rule alone, the brother was an idiot who hadn't the brains to understand anything but was tolerated for his honesty and ignorance. Ugh, without the inserts it was an okay story but now.., Is this what happens when there is no editor? Was this stuff that a previous editor recommended be removed because it weakened the story? WTH was the author thinking? It made me think that the author did not respect the main character at all.

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