Gray's Cozy Nook

It is a rare feat when I cannot finish a book, especially books with tropes I adore–however, this book took the whole entire cake and threw it out the train. Within the confines of this anthology was three novellas, written by very well-known clean romance writers. This is what drew my attention, and what more was that it was set during a time that The Orient Express was still running, which made me get the book as soon as I had read the synopsis and title.

Sadly, I couldn’t finish this novel and neither did it leave me a desire to, as the female leads were preposterous with their actions, and there were many times the dialogue seemed to have no point furthering the story. It seemed as if the conversations written were just there to add filler into the pages. The two beginning novellas had heroines that seemed to be level-headed and mature. However, as the stories progressed the women grew unstable with their emotions and would act unbecoming of who they presented themselves to be in the beginning of the story. It was an absolute disaster.

The last novella was what sealed the fate of this book for me. As the beginning seemed genuinely written well, with acceptable and understandable emotions the heroine was feeling towards the hero. The anthology had ALMOST redeemed itself, until the halfway point of the story… I need to mention this, I have a strong disliking for political propaganda into a story that has no reason to be in there, when it does not further the story or the character development. It was just there, like the big elephant in the room. I shut the book, and gave up entirely because I want stories that have proper development, not crazy and unnecessary dialogues, that give no point to the story itself.

It’s a dark and sad day for me to have to write that this was one of the most dissatisfying novels I’ve read this year. It pains me to say that when I know how hard these novelist work to make these stories, but it was not my cup of tea. I give this anthology only ONE STAR, and that is for the courageous men who were written into the novel who were the only level-headed people in the entire anthology.