Bored. I’m so bored.

This book was just so boring.  Nothing wrong with it, but nothing particularly right about it either.  If you’re looking for a completely generic historical romance, look no further.

Lucy Merryweather is an American heiress on her own in London.  She has not run away, but traveled to visit her ex-fiance and has decided to stay and have some fun.  Along with the money she inherited from her great aunt, she also inherited a diary that lists all of the aunt’s regrets in life.  Lucy decides to complete everything on her aunt’s list before heading home and once again becoming the perfect, dutiful daughter that her family thinks she is.  Cameron Effington, the youngest son of a duke, goes by the name Cameron Fairchild as he has tried to make a career for himself as a journalist.  His father does not like that he has chosen a career, and makes a bet with him about writing a book.  Looking for inspiration, Cameron stumbles upon Lucy’s situation and finds her his perfect muse.  Lucy mistakes Cameron for a private detective hired to keep an eye on her.  The two end up as friends and work through the list and mistaken identity.

This is maybe the fifth(?) book in this series, but I have only read the one immediately prior to this one.  I remember nothing of it, but the best part was definitely Lucy, so despite the other one being boring I was looking forward to this one.  It was a big letdown.  The way the Effington family was written about I suspect there are other past books where they appear.  The family history was exceptionally boring without that background.  There was nothing wrong with the leads, other than they were also boring.  The exploits?  Eh.  None of it caught my fancy.  What this book truly lacked was smolder.  There were no longing glances.  No furtive kisses.  Not even much witty banter, despite the author’s clear attempt.  Also, I wish I knew how to diagram sentences.  There was just something about the sentence structure here that grated on me and I’d like to figure out what it was.

One good thing – Lucy was not stupid.  She knew something was up with Cameron and didn’t just hang out in the dark like an idiot, with a final ‘gasp’ moment when all is revealed.  She’s also not some magical genius that figures everything out instantly.  She felt like a very real, bright person.  Cameron is very self-centered and almost too beta for me (and I enjoy a good beta hero).  I thought Lucy could do better.  She basically fell for the first guy she met after breaking off her never-really-real engagement.

There was a very clear sequel set up of the real private detective friend and his partner, and I was very intrigued by them.  But I feel like I fell for that sequel bait last time.  Fool me once…and all that.  If I magically found myself somewhere without a book to read (how is this possible?!) and stumbled upon another by this author, I would read it, but I’m not going to search them out, and I’m not going to buy them anymore – even on sale.