Beanbag Love

This was a somewhat disappointing entry into Long's mostly entertaining "Pennyroyal Green" series. The book has many problems and I found myself shaking my head several times.

First of all, I read the dead tree version and I swear I didn't go three pages without some kind of typo or mistake. Dropped words, repeated words, words out of order, the wrong word ("thought" instead of "though", for example). I was constantly editing in my head. At some points I had to read a sentence a few times to decipher what seemed to be code. Ridiculous from a publisher big enough to think they have the right to fix prices through the agency model.

But I can't blame the publisher for all the problems. The story has a decent premise -- a young woman joins the manhunt for a notorious pirate against the wishes of the captain of the ship assigned to bring the pirate to justice -- but there's so much introspection and so little of the POV of the hero it read like an early draft of a story. We'd go these long stretches where all we would read is Violet's thoughts about how hunky and lovable Flint is and how worried she is about her brother, Lyon. Again. I swear we saw that same inner monologue about fifteen times.

There were good moments. Julie Anne Long has a way with her characters when they finally get together. There were times when I was sucked in -- especially toward the end -- and I couldn't wait to get back to it when I'd put it down. But the romance is resolved in the last pages and then it's over. Frustrating after wading through chapters and chapters of Violet's belated coming-of-age and not enough detail about Flint's emotional awakening.

So, sadly, I have to give this one 2.75 stars. It's just not up to the rest of the series, IMO.