Title: Daring In a Blue Dress
Series: Machmaker In Wonderland #3
Author: Katie MacAlister
Publisher: Signet
Date: June 7th, 2016
Pages: 336
Format: eARC
Source: from Publisher for a review
Synopsis (from Goodreads): Chivalry is far from dead in the third novel in the “gut-wrenchingly funny”* Matchmaker in Wonderland Romance series.
Stranded in England without money or a ticket home, Mercy Starling takes a job working for a medieval reenactment company. After all, who wouldn’t want to pretend to live in the past, wield swords and long bows, and dress up in armor? And the best part of her summer job is Bestwood Hall…or rather, its intriguing new owner.
The painfully shy Alden Ainslie is overwhelmed by the medieval reenactors who invade the Tudor house he’s renovating, but he’s drawn to the bubbly Mercy. And he valiantly joins in the fun, dodging not just arrows, lances, and the odd sword thrust, but also some pretty suspicious—and potentially deadly—attacks on himself. Someone wants him to give up on the house. But Alden is desperate to prove himself—and win the heart of his lady fair…
Review:
When it comes to this book, I really, truly believe it is one of those „It’s not you, it’s me“ cases.
You see, there are so many aspects to this story that I believe other people would enjoy, but when it comes to me, I just couldn’t bring myself to like it, even though I wanted to.
In fact, reading this book made want to DNF it, and it made me regret my decision about not DNFing books that I read for review.
But I’ll give it that one – it made me see how making that decision wasn’t the smartest idea in the world.
Daring in a Blue Dress is a third book in the Matchmaker In Wonderland series, but you don’t have to read the first two in order to read this one, because it can be read as a standalone.
The story is written in somewhat unusual way, where it follows two POVs: Mercy’s and Alden’s (who’s name I adore!). While Mercy’s POV was written in first person, Alden’s was written in third person.
I think that was a smart move from author because sometimes, when writing a story from different POVs, it can be hard to make them sound different.
The story starts with Mercy coming to England and meeting a girl who’s job she decides to take because she can’t work where she planned originally.
I liked that part. I liked Mercy’s voice, I liked the idea I got from those few pages about where the story could go and it sat my expectations level a bit higher.
Unfortunately, as the story developed, I liked this book less and less.
Mercy was so unlikeable to me, I know some people would find her behaviour interesting and funny, but I’m not one of those people.
At some scenes, I even found her as an emotional blackmailer.
For Alden‘s charcter there’s a phrase that we, in my country, use and it would describe him perfectly: Mrtvo puhalo.That means there’s not many characteristics I could use to describe him, he was there to be there, and the only thing that I can surely say about him is that he suffers from anxiety, even though it is never said in the book. There, you can read that he is just really, really shy.
This book contains more then some sex scenes, but they are not overdone.
There are some scenes where something important is going on but Mercy can’t concentrate because Alden is just too sexy to her, and while someone would roll their eyes on those scenes, I actually welcomed them because I felt they were believable.
However, closer to the end, some important scenes were happening (and when I say important, I mean „fear for your life importnt“) and when Mercy couldn’t think about anything but how Alden sexy is, I rolled my eyes.
There is a mystery aspect to this story, but it wasn’t a big mystery if you ask me, as I figured out who’s involved with who almost from the beginning.
The lawyer in me also questioned the law aspect to this story.
All in all, although this book wasn’t for me, I think other people would enjoy it.
Personally, I think that it would be a great tv movie that I would like to watch one Sunday afternoon.