The Trouble With Honor is an extremely enjoyable work of fiction. The herione, Honor Cabot, could sit almost in any YA fantasy / paranormal novel. Whilst that may seem like a weird reference, bear with me a second.
It's been a while since I reviewed a book, even longer since reviewing a fiction book, so I had to make notes and go back to them. This review is for the paperback edition - this is where Kindle shines because it is so easy to make notes on the app!
Anyway, onto the story, which isn't remarkably original in itself, in that the family faces financial ruin and so it is to Honor we turn to restore some, er...honour to the Cabot family.
However, Honor is a feisty character and I was drawn to her boldness immediately. She's challenging, and daring - which to most men would make her annoying and difficult. I don't doubt it - but she is written so well for the most part by Julia London that you can't help but like Honor Cabot.
As her beau, George puts it, "It is a puzzle to me how one woman can be so clever and fearless, and yet naive, all at once."
I know where he's coming from. It's like Honor has a dual personality....one minute she is feisty and fearless, the next, she does things that bamboozle me! Is this what the author intended?
I don't know. So my feelings are a bit strange about Honor. I'd like to think she is more the former than the latter.
Maybe it's all the Jane Austen I read as a kid, but I have some difficulty accepting that men talked in that period as George Easton does to Honor. He's very forward, brash, and yeah...rather vulgar. Perhaps some women like that in a man, but I didn't believe Honor would fall for that. And yet it seems she does.
Jane Austen's heroes were far more polite. I am not saying every HR should be like JA's works, but vulgarity drops the quality of the book down a notch or two.
That said, The Trouble With Honor ends on a satisfactory note, and I would be encouraged to read the second book in the series.
