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A review by birdkeeperklink
The Romanov Bride by Robert Alexander
1.0
I invoked the Rule of 50, and therefore only read the first 53 pages. It was really all I could stomach. This man writes like a fourth-grader--he clearly has no understanding of the way people talk, or if he does, his idea of how people spoke at the turn of the century is just laughable. It's very stilted and contrived dialogue.
I can't tell if he had a good story on his hands or not, because I was too distracted by the awful dialogue and the unnecessary descriptions of people's clothing. It's really, really odd that he spends so much time describing trivial things or moments and then bolts past moments that are actually important to the story. For example, why weren't we shown Pavel's meetings with the terrorists plotting Grand Duke Sergei's murder? That would've actually been interesting!
Also, he clearly has no idea how women think of themselves. We don't say to ourselves 'I think I shall push my fair hair from my eyes, dab at my tears with my embroidered handkerchief and straighten my puffy pink afternoon gown, embroidered with small diamonds in the shape of orchid leaves!' Also, women don't cry nearly as often as he seems to think they do (which is, apparently, every five minutes).
Maybe it's just how he chose to tell the story--in small first-person chunks, as though Pavel and Grand Duchess Ella are trading stories back and forth--because something clearly was not working. Maybe if he'd tried third-person, and actually showed these scenes taking place, it might have worked better. As it is, this is a rushed mess, with unbelievable caricatures of human beings swapping lines they hope sound Shakespearean and describing everything about themselves even though no one cares. I am completely serious when I say it reads like a fourth-grader wrote it. It seems like a youngster's first try at a novel, and if that's what it is, Robert Alexander should've left it in his box of keepsakes or else rewritten it before inflicting it on an unsuspecting public.
I can't tell if he had a good story on his hands or not, because I was too distracted by the awful dialogue and the unnecessary descriptions of people's clothing. It's really, really odd that he spends so much time describing trivial things or moments and then bolts past moments that are actually important to the story. For example, why weren't we shown Pavel's meetings with the terrorists plotting Grand Duke Sergei's murder? That would've actually been interesting!
Also, he clearly has no idea how women think of themselves. We don't say to ourselves 'I think I shall push my fair hair from my eyes, dab at my tears with my embroidered handkerchief and straighten my puffy pink afternoon gown, embroidered with small diamonds in the shape of orchid leaves!' Also, women don't cry nearly as often as he seems to think they do (which is, apparently, every five minutes).
Maybe it's just how he chose to tell the story--in small first-person chunks, as though Pavel and Grand Duchess Ella are trading stories back and forth--because something clearly was not working. Maybe if he'd tried third-person, and actually showed these scenes taking place, it might have worked better. As it is, this is a rushed mess, with unbelievable caricatures of human beings swapping lines they hope sound Shakespearean and describing everything about themselves even though no one cares. I am completely serious when I say it reads like a fourth-grader wrote it. It seems like a youngster's first try at a novel, and if that's what it is, Robert Alexander should've left it in his box of keepsakes or else rewritten it before inflicting it on an unsuspecting public.