Miss Wonderful: Number 1 in series (Carsington Family, #1)

by Loretta Chase

Alistair Carsington really, really wishes he didn't love women quite so much. To escape his worst impulses, he sets out for a place far from civilisation: Derbyshire- in winter, where he hopes to kill two birds with one stone: avoid all temptation, and repay the friend who saved his life on the battlefields of Waterloo. But this noble aim drops him straight into opposition with Miss Mirabel Oldridge, a woman every bit as intelligent, obstinate, and devious as he - and maddeningly irresistible.

Mirabel Oldridge already has her hands full keeping her brilliant and aggravatingly eccentric father out of trouble. The last thing she needs is a stunningly attractive, oversensitive and overbright aristocrat reminding her she has a heart - not to mention a body he claims is so unstylishly clothed that undressing her is practically a civic duty. Could the situation be any worse? And why does something that seems so wrong feel so very wonderful?

• ISBN10: 0749937106
• ISBN13: 9780749937102
• Publish Date: 4 January 2007 (first published 2 March 2004)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 16 June 2016
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
• Imprint: Piatkus Books
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 352
• Language: English

Reviews

I've loved the other two Loretta Chase books I've read but this one just missed the mark. It wasn't bad - just kind of boring and it seemed endlessly long because of it. The biggest problem beyond plot was that I just didn't like the characters. Alistair was kind of ridiculous and Mirabel was just drab. She had no real distinguishing marks, nothing to set her apart from the million other female characters I've encountered. There was very little witty banter and she didn't seem to have hobbies beyond liking nature and I just didn't care. Alistair was somewhat set apart as a clothes fiend and his insistent on his clothes and her clothes looking pristine and fashionable but it wasn't enough to keep my interest.

So apart they were bland and together even more so. I didn't really see why either of them liked the other and the chemistry between them was non-existent. And there was very little plot to occupy 300+ pages. I did like Alistair's solution to the canal problem (he suggests a railway instead) but it just wasn't enough to redeem the rest of it. 2 stars, edging closer to the 1.5.