The Leopard Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt

I don't normally report on books that I don't finish, but I got pretty far in this one - over 100 pages - so I decided to include it.

The Leopard Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt
(2007, Georgian) 3/1/08
Grade: 2.5

Lady Georgina Maitland is in Yorkshire, visiting her estates, when she discovers someone has been poisoning sheep in the area. She turns to her estate manager, Harrry Pye, even though he’s been accused of the crime. As she and Harry investigate, she finds there’s more to her employee than she might have expected.

I found this book oddly disappointing, to the point that I couldn’t finish it. I had high hopes for it at first. I really liked the interactions between the aristocratic heroine and the lower class hero - her assumption that she can order him around, his frustrations with her and his position. It was an interesting exploration of social class and how two people could overcome it. But the book really went off for me in the second half. First, the sex. I don’t mind love scenes, but here, the author seemed to go out of her way to make them crass and tawdry, from her word choices to the descriptions. Maybe I’m just too picky, but I found them off-putting rather than sexy. Then there was the mystery plot, which took up too much space. And then, Georgina completely changes her personality and we get a contrived romance plot twist, “let’s push them together with a baby”. I was skimming at this point, but it just seemed like the last straw. It was disappointing, because there were a lot of interesting things in the first part of the book.

I have a mixed view of erotica. I don't mind a hot love scene, and I've been known to read some pretty spicy stuff. But in this book, the blunt, somewhat crass erotic scenes just didn't mesh with the emotional feelings of the love story. Maybe this makes me prissy, but I don't find cold and unemotional references to pricks and f**ks particularly romantic or sexy - it can work in certain contexts (Emma Holly is one author who can do it - I quite enjoyed the frank sexuality of Menage) but most of the time, it just seems jarring and offputting to me.