Never Seduce a Scot by Maya Banks

DNF @ 28%

*throws book across the room*

I gave this author several chances with two of her BDSM series, but both of those were about gross cavemen using BDSM to facilitate their misogynistic 1950s-style-bend-over-and-hand-me-my-martini fantasies from watching too many back to back episodes of Mad Men and Sister Wives on TiVo with a raging hard-on.

Surely, I told myself, this sort of antiquated mindset would work better in a costume historical, where if not exactly savory, at least such 'roid rage would at least sort of be easier to swallow (among other things, cough, cough).

...NOPE

NEVER SEDUCE A SCOT was just as infuriating as the other books by this author that I've read but for different reasons. Those books were bad because they featured some truly awful sex scenes and some really warped views on safe, sane, and consensual kink. This book was infuriating because it takes an utterly Disney approach to history, with two feuding Scottish clans basically sitting back and tolerating one another after a marriage of convenience with only a few petty snips that wouldn't even merit a detention.

I was also not very happy with the disability rep. The heroine is deaf, but so shamed by this that she pretends to be mute instead, and somehow managed to instantly pick up lip-reading (no communication issues that would make the plot needlessly complicated). She sustained this injury from falling off a horse, which makes me suspect that she probably regains her hearing at the end of the book, undoubtedly after a bout of cure-all sex with the hero, I'm sure. She also hasn't fully lost her hearing and can still hear deep sounds, and much to her delight, the hero's voice is the only voice that she can still hear, despite her deafness. Oh, how convenient. Let me roll my eyes.

As if that weren't enough insult to injury, the heroine is probably one of the most disgustingly precious characters I've encountered in a while, stomping her foot, pouting, winning confidences easily, and just in general being such an annoying little priss that I was shocked nobody professing to hate her (like all of the women in the keep) had made an attempt to hurl her from the ramparts.

Methinks that this author is not for me. I think I only paid $1.99 for this book, but even that was too much. It was boring and awful, and now I need to find another Scottish romance for my reading challenge since this one didn't past muster.

1 out of 5 stars