MIDSUMMER MAGIC by Catherine Coulter

PUBLISHER: Onyx, 12/1987
GENRE: Historical Romance
SETTING: Scotland & England, 1810

SERIES: Magic trilogy, #1
MY GRADE: D

SYNOPSIS: Clever, beautiful Frances Kilbracken disguised herself as a mousy Scottish lass to keep Hawk, the notoriously rakish and dashing Earl of Rothermere, from being forced to marry her. But she was chosen as his bride for that very reason. Wedded, bedded, and finally deserted, Frances quickly shed her dowdy facade to become glittering London's most ravishing and fashionable leading lady...only to find she had roused the ire--and ignited the passions--of her faithless husband. But even as Hawk claimed rights to her body, Frances swore never to allow him to enter her heart. How could she trust this man who made women his playthings? yet how could she resist the burning kisses and soft caresses that plundered her yielding flesh...until they reached the deep core of her love...

    

MY THOUGHTS: This was beyond boring and it was a long 412 pages. There really wasn't much of a plotline. Frances, nineteen, didn't want to marry anyone, let alone move to England to marry Hawk, who's twenty-six. She's incredibly immature and not enjoyable to read about. I really came to dislike her. Some reviewers see her first time with Hawk (p 138) as rape but I don't. She made it clear that she didn't want to have sex but gave in when he told her to "just lie there." The third time Hawk wanted to have sex with her she hid in another room. Give me a break. She's always throwing fits, telling Hawk she "hates" him and I got tired of it. She even punched him in the stomach once, told him she wished his "toe would rot off" and wanted him to suffer a head injury. Hawk's not likable either. He's a pretty calm person, doesn't yell but he's always threatening violence towards her and that behavior doesn't really fit with what we see of him. They get along great one minute, start bickering the next for absolutely no reason. They're just really poorly written characters written into a poorly thought-out book.

There's a subplot involving horses and racing that nearly overtook the story. Something criminal is going on with the horses and that I did find interesting but you kind of know who's involved long before it's revealed at the very end but I didn't mind that. And I liked the revelation involving his deceased brother.

There was too much sex in here and the word "cream" (as lube) was mentioned 13 TIMES, three of which were on the same page. But I couldn't have cared less about it because the story was so boring and I didn't care about any of the characters.