Nadine (23dollars) - reviewed on 6/8/2013 + 432 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 4

This GORGEOUS cover caught my eye as I perused the new releases table at Barnes & Noble the other day. And that first line? Sold me as soon as I read it! It's one of the best openings ever! It even got several of my online reading buddies in The Reading Cove interested enough to get the book and read it with me.

But what a disappointment! Talk about a book not living up to its potential...

It's the 1920s, and amidst Parisian scandal, Delilah Drummond must take refuge in Kenya ~ where she better watch how hard she breathes, or she'll be eaten at any second by hungry LIONS, TIGERS and BEARS, oh my! And every time she turns around, another poor person or child's been hacked into by wild African beasts! Oh my! ;-)

Not to mention that 2.3 seconds after getting there, Delilah suddenly becomes a prime candidate for UN Ambassador! Healing the sick, feeding the poor...and confessing to a murder she didn't commit. You know, the usual.

No, seriously. This book was just a wad of generic clichés about Africa, with a bow of trite, bland Harlequin romance between Delilah and Ryder White tied on. It was eye-rollingly laughable bad. Zero complexity. Negative zero depth. Something I might've gobbled up as a 12-year-old perhaps, but now? Not so much. For instance, what adult reader is supposed to believe that Delilah Drummond would be utterly perplexed, page after clichéd page, as to why Ryder behaved so strangely around her lover, Kit?? Seriously??! Puleeze.

Alas. The writing itself wasn't bad, but the substance was lacking. So for A SPEAR OF SUMMER GRASS, C/C-.

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