Status Updates From Stranded with Her Forbidden...

Simon’s bff just died because Elowyn’s father was trying to murder Simon, but the bff threw himself in front of the spear. It’s supposed to be this dramatic tragedy, yet I feel nothing because we barely met the guy. He had maybe 3 speaking lines. 🙄 Authors…if you want your reader to feel something akin to what the hero feels, they need to actually know & like the dead character before he’s killed!

Continuity error alert: first he unlaces her dress & pushes it off her shoulders to pool at her feet, but 2 pages later he’s scrambling to remove her dress to see her whole body. 🙈 Nice one, editors.

How can a feuding family backdrop/enemies-to-lovers romance possibly be this boring? 🤔 Maybe because we’ve yet to see the feud except her father yelling at the hero, & we’ve yet to see any ‘enemy’ to the romance because they’ve wanted each other forever. Yaaaaawn.

This is aggressively boring, so I put on a random playlist. Along comes “We’re Gonna Grove” by Led Zep & now the bland dullness of the MCs shows even more. Oops. 🤭 This pair needs some classic rock sex appeal. Or any sex appeal at all.

‘It ran over & over in her mind, as she tried in vain to find reasons why any of it had happened.’ ….FFS, woman. It happened because your brother was young & dumb & wrongly pissed off & did something stupid after ignoring multiple warnings. 🙄 I know you loved the guy, but the time has come to admit it was his own fault that he got killed. Move on, already.

I’m already tired of reading the names Bawden & Trebarr. And you don’t need to keep summarizing what happened in the prologue…because we saw it happen in the prologue. 🙄

Trying to understand how the dead brother could be so devoted to his sister & yet be SO STUPID (as in seriously epic stupidity) that he gets himself killed for no reason when he’s fully aware she has no other protector, or even anyone in her family who gives a damn. 🤔 When you know someone you care about relies on you that much, it colors all your actions…unless you’re this particular dumbass. 🙈

The great Harlequin Shelf Clean-Up(tm) continues. 🫣 Tried this author once & it was just ok—but it was a debut, so we’ll see if she’s improved since then.