Rebekah's Reviews > Codename Charming

What a disappointment! I really like Lucy Parker. Love her, even. I’ve only given one of her books 3 stars rather than 4 or 5 and that was the first one in this very series, Battle Royal. I think there is more than one reason why this one did not engage me. While reading the book, at about 40% mark, I realized I was bored and not enjoying it. As I went through, I gave this a lot of thought. Which just emphasizes how disengaged from the story I was, I guess. I loved the atmosphere and setting of her London Celebrities series which was set in the West End of London. The banter was literate, sparkling, and sharp as one would expect from sophisticated and worldly theatre types. It all seemed very authentic and I felt immersed in that fascinating and glamorous world. They were not cheesy. This spin-off from Battle Royal takes on the story of Pet, Gus’s sister, and the bodyguard who was on duty when Johnny Marchmont was attacked and Pet saved him from serious injury. Johnny is the sweet and shy fiance` of a princess in a fictional royal family in nonfictional England who “has two left feet, one of which was usually lodged squarely in his mouth.” In this book, Johnny and Princess Rosie are happily married and Pen has become his personal assistant.

Somehow the tabloid press has latched on to the idea that Johnny and Pet are having an affair. To counter that, the palace cooks up a fake romance between Matthias, Johnny’s bodyguard, and Pet. I think the book relied too much on the readers being sufficiently entertained by the eccentricity and glamour of the main and surrounding characters being royalty or royal insiders. There is some entertainment value there, as most of the family members we meet are quirky, and the constant battle with the “Paps” and other elements of life amongst the Royals are vaguely interesting. But, besides the progression of the romance, there really isn’t much of a secondary plot to add mystery or suspense or drama, as with her other novels. There is a small subplot of Pet learning of her real parentage, but this didn’t seem all that important or put very much at stake. Another about the tortured past of Matthias was just the same old-same old. Much of the situational humor seemed contrived. The hiding in the closet while the Spanish ambassador’s husband and the Chancellor of the Exchequer were having sex went on For-Ev-Er. To say nothing of the parrot.

The main idea of the romantic relationship is that Pet is a “human sunbeam” and very tiny pretty pixie-girl and Matthias is a brawny, hulking, ”ugly”, and taciturn. Unlike Lucy Parker’s other couples, who all had their careers and social circles in the same rarefied world, these two have nothing in common other than described-in-great-detail trauma in their past. This does not lead to a lot of sparkling conversation and witty quick banter that was such an attraction in her other books. And the size thing was way overdone to the point it became almost cartoonish. We just have a lot of physical attraction and a lot of inner dialogue and musings about what lies beneath the surface. It goes on and on analyzing feelings and reviewing past interactions often in the middle of a conversation. One of them will make a comment and then “blah blah blah” and the response isn’t until pages later. This slows the book down to a crawl.

The Beauty and the Beast trope is usually a good one for me, and the love story might have earned at least 3 stars despite its problems. Unfortunately, the last book I read by her, Artistic License had the same exact theme. As far as the H/h’s physical appearance, personality, and the Hero’s business with the heroine it was practically a carbon copy. (He is a security specialist protecting a shy girl whose life is in danger). This isn’t Lucy Parker’s fault as this was a very early book she wrote under another name. I don’t blame her for reaching back across the years to borrow elements of an old plotline and trying to do it better. But she didn't do it better. It was just unfortunate timing on my part. There are flashes of good funny writing in this, but sorry, most of the time it was just slow and boring for me, and even when I sped up my reading speed to the max, it seemed like it took forever to finish it.

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