“Perfect” in a title raises my expectations

This book is a mystery romance where a couple are thrown together through contrivance, running from bad guys, chasing the past actions of a con man to prove our heroine’s innocence from a murder charge. It sounds good. It’s only.. ok. It’s engrossing enough while you’re reading it, but utterly forgettable and unrealistic.

I will acknowledge I have issues. It’s not the greatest plan to read a book which bills itself as a beach read in the depths of winter. It contains adventure, romance, and a large smattering of abandoning your real life to run away and live a quiet, creative existence with simple needs. In books, this may be a great idea. The real world does not find poverty to be overly romantic. Doesn’t help that the hero comments during the discussion of how one could live a simpler life that “Someone as beautiful as you could easily find work.” Lovely implications.

This also isn’t great to read at the moment, because my cranky self does not like:

– unrealistically quick relationships where a magical “twu wuv” emerges while running from bad guys and having little sleep, but seemingly is the basis of the rest of your life

– patently unlikely treasure hunts where somehow an accountant hid a CASTLE IN SCOTLAND. A castle and 5,000 acres which he managed to buy and hide from angry Russians, rich Spaniards and his family. Which he told no-one about so that his family believed he died bankrupt and they’ve lost their whole rich existence. What a good dad!!

– the fact that his daughter, who was supposed to solve his mystery code leading her to the castle never solves it, but a special sexing with her gives the hero the clue. I mean, orgasm = mental clue-solving skills? Also, how was she going to solve this mystery? She patently had no clue. What a rotten legacy – “I left you a castle, but you’ll never know”.. As this girl believed her dad died bankrupt, she has no reason to ever suspect there’s a secret castle to find. This is like setting a treasure hunt, but putting the treasure map in a bin and telling no-one. The only clue was a name and a date written in a book, which (spoiler) relates to a mountain and ordnance survey codes. It could just have easily been a book, a strangers’ gravestone or what it appeared to be – RANDOM STUFF SCRIBBLED ON A TITLE PAGE. Seriously. This is not a leap of faith, but more like a marathon spaceship of delusion.

Sigh. I mean, it’s a solid 2 out of 5, and you don’t notice the plot caverns until later.