★★ Tender Torment by Alicia Meadowes

This is a story about a hero..one who was so bad and vicious, that such badness smashed flat any hopeful chances of the reader to sympathize, because his own self-pity surpassed what ray of hope you could muster. And NO, not a Thomas Eden sort of self-pity, but a full-fledged Little Engine That Couldn't. Even from the grave, his mommy beat him down in everyday life, to the point where all women manifested into her. Sometimes, oftentimes, that can be harnessed into a great sculpting of hero lick-worthy stature, but in this instant, it wasn't. He was stuck in the same prepubescent runt rut, instead of the childhood trauma embittering him. HE was the bigger victim in all angles of the story.



I'm going to make this brief and to the point because the historical lollygagging had wrapped around the hero due to his ranking in the British military. It held up to his reputation. Now, I realize the hero's guts are prolly splattered under some feminist campaign bus-tires, and his acts were likely ones that set the Regency sterilized readers' into full weenie roast mode, but what disappointed me MORE than his cloak & mustache dramatic flares was that he was so freakin' whiny & Mommy Didn't Love Me, to the extent where I wanted to fire hose him down from a milk truck, was the fact that his BADNESS did not transcend beyond the stomping piss-fits and into a BADNESS I could love in my secret thoughts, if ya feel me.



He had all of the backhistory and military status that could have proved quite delicious, albeit--his I HAS NO FEELZ SNIFFLE SNIFFLE...granny you know I am inhuman and incapable of emotions! STOMP STOMP SLAM drivel had me wishin' he had been stampeded down in Run of the Bulls. The peppered assortment of sneers, scolds, glares and other evul incarnated gestures overpowered the sincerity that would have been possible to view him as a realistic hero; where they're capable of goodness as well as terrible acts.

An agenda of adjectives cannot convince me of his tortured past and mixed emotions; the hero lacked a vitality to prove himself worthy, or unworthy of anything, except an easy HEA. Did he change? Yes, because the transitions were instant and written over yer forehead as the words are tallied in your mind. I guess I much rather the apologism be left unsaid and actions themselves speak when the characters have said far too much themselves already.

This hero would give old Contemporary Harley heroes a run for their money, for definite. If you like those types of heroes, he'll be a suitable Historical wetdream for your fancy.