Review: Rhiannon

Last night was night four in clean/scour the basement for garage sale items extravaganza. Somehow my father, sister and I got onto the topic of trashy romance novels and my father revealed to me that my great-grandmother loved trashy romance novels. And here I always thought that she was reading large print biographies when I went up to her room to visit her...

Anyway, it reminded me that I still have yet to post my review of Rhiannon by Evangelynn Stratton.

After I finished reading No Place for a Lady, my friend Ashley and I decided we'd swap novels. Ash holds this book near and dear to her heart and I was definitely interested in what made her so excited about it.

She warned me it was trash, it was fantastic, and I would love it, so I was anticipating its arrival at my house. On first impression: the cover art made me giggle (image via Amazon.com), as did a fantastic drawing of Jarreth atop his trusty steed on the inside of the book. I believe the drawings were done by one of the author's daughters so I appreciated the work once I realized it wasn't done by a professional. In fact I thought it was kind of sweet Stratton had done that.

This book was so different from the Harlequin Historical I had the pleasure of reading previously. It was well researched and the language helped to portray the story. In a nutshell Rhiannon finds out her father has arranged yet another marriage for her and runs away only to meet the man she's contracted to marry on her escape route, but they both conceal their identity in a very Twelfth Night sort of way.

She is silly and always find the worst ways of getting into trouble, sometimes setting places on fire, sometimes getting attacked by pirates, other times getting attacked by gypsies, sometimes almost drowning...and Jarreth seems to always manage to save her in one way or another. The whole time though, she has no idea that he is her betrothed. Yeah, he plays a dirty trick on her and hilarity ensues.

The ratings:
Raunch Factor: *****
It honestly wasn't that raunchy at all.
Writing Style: *****
As I mentioned, it was decently written.
Ridiculousness: *****
Between the gypsies, the pirates, the nuns and the war-horses, it was mildly ridiculous.
Actual Plot: *****
Although agnoizing at times, the plot was decent. It probably would have been more fun to hide some things from the reader though.

All in all it was pretty fantastic. Ashley did not disappoint in this one. I personally enjoy a little more raunch in my trashy novels, but that's just a personal preference.