The Bed and the Bachelor
Ms. Warren’s latest Byrons of Braebourne historical romance is proof that an author’s competency with prose doesn’t inherently translate into a well-written book. Ms. Warren is a capable writer with a knack for description and settings. However, in this book, her proficiency does not extend to her plot or her characters. I found the former dreary and the latter unlikely.
Drake Byron is a brilliant scientist who has always put his work before his heart. Oh, he has the obligatory mistress he can pleasure several times in an evening, but he’s never come close to falling in love or even to believing any woman could understand his research-oriented life-style. He’s currently working on an unbreakable cipher to further stymie the French during the final years of the Napoleonic Wars. He takes great pains to make sure his work is secure, so he stores it in a safe, the key to which he wears around his elegant yet manly neck.
Drake hires the absurdly young and requisitely lovely Sebastianne Dumont to be his new housekeeper. Sebastianne, who is using the alias Anne Greenway, has been planted in Drake’s household by the cartoonishly evil Vacheau — a henchman working for bad guys somehow connected to Napoleon. Vacheau has threatened to destroy Sebastianne’s father and two young brothers if she doesn’t steal the cipher and turn it over to the French. Sebastianne has been picked for this unsavory task because she speaks perfect English and is English on her mother’s side. She hates to mislead Drake and his warm and caring staff (I am, of course, referring to those who work for him) but she must in order to save her family.
That’s pretty much the story. Drake spends time working, visiting with the other Braebournes, and scolding himself for lusting after his housekeeper. (He feels only a brute would sleep with one of his domestics.) Sebastianne manages the house, serves Drake tea, and schemes — though it tears at her to do so — to steal the cipher from Drake. Within a few weeks, Drake’s found his inner brute and is ecstatically bedding Sebastianne who feels wildly guilty about the real reason she is in Drake’s house. (If only she could tell him the truth, she might stop thinking about Drake’s key and enjoy those post-coital moments a bit more.)
This isn’t a bad book, but it’s not a good one either. Ms. Warren takes too long to tell her story and relies on silly melodrama at its end. Sebastianne is not believable as a housekeeper or a spy and Drake, despite his big brain, is rather dull. The sexual tension between the two isn’t convincing and, once they do become lovers, their exploits are detailed rather than delicious. The problems the two face are solved too easily and Drake and Sebastianne are gifted with so many talents they seem like comic book characters.
And while I acknowledge Ms. Warren’s ability to wield a pen, she has one writing quirk I find annoying. Again and again in the novel she writes a full sentence followed by three fragments. It made me want to hurl my book against the wall. To take out my anger on my Kindle. To turn to drinking too much wine. To put down the book and read the latest Jennifer Ashley.
Lastly, both the cover and the title of this tome are unappealing. The cover features a man and a woman in bed — she, despite being prone, appears to have two large grapefruits beneath her red satin sheets. And the title — well, a romance between a bachelor and his bed rarely involves a woman. I kept imagining Drake and his staff sans Sebastianne.
It’s clear from this book Ms. Warren has more Byrons of Braebourne stories to tell. I hope she will do so with more finesse than she shows in the banal The Bed and the Bachelor.