Review of A Gentleman Says "I Do" by Amelia Gray

Title/Author: A Gentleman Says "I Do" by Amelia Gray
Publisher/Date published: Sourcebooks Casablanca, May 1st 2012
How I got this book: received it from the publisher through NetGalley

Goodreads summary: "Iverson Brentwood has finally met his match. Catalina Crisp heats his blood like no other lady. Her alluring countenance has stopped him dead in his tracks. But no matter how attracted he is to her, he can't give into his desire to possess her in every way... she is the daughter of the man he's sworn to destroy.
Catalina's father is a well-known writer, but wastrel whose disappearances continuously put them close to destitution. Something drastic must change, so it is with quill in hand, that Catalina completes her father's latest parody of Iverson and Matson Brentwood's spectacular arrival in London. When the story hits the newsprint, a darkly handsome man is at her door, looking for her father.
Seeing the dashing rogue in the flesh, for a bewildering moment dallying with the rake seems like the perfect fictional escape — and it's all she can do not to give into the madness of the intriguing man."

You guys know that historical romance is one of my many guilty pleasures right? Because they are. I love the romance and the drama and the dresses and the men being manly and ALL THE EMOTIONS. And it always makes me a little sad when I don't feel much of anything while reading them, and that's exactly what happened with this one.

First off, the summary is misleading. Iverson isn't out to destroy Catalina's father, he just wants to threathen him a bit to make him stop writing things about his family. If he really were, he would have seduced Catalina right then and there and ruined her in society's eyes. But that's just my opinion. No matter how much it kept appearing in the story: I couldn't picture Iverson as the Rake of Baltimore. Even though he keeps insisting he's not a gentleman, his actions spoke louder and he was definitely not ruthless or anything. I liked Iverson very much up until about the end of A Gentleman Says I Do, but we'll get to that.

Catalina was an interesting character, she's loyal and loving and cares a great deal about everyone and puts herself last. There were just some times when I felt myself going WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING??? and could see trouble coming from literally MILES away. And that bothered me, because while everyone can make mistakes, these were pretty big ones and she sometimes seemed clueless when she was described as smart and responsible earlier.

So the main characters were nice enough. I did however take issue with Catalina's aunt and her father. I couldn't fathom how these two adults could be so clueless to money issues and well, basically everything. How did they make it to their respectable age? This baffles me. I could not figure out how they remembered to take a breath on their own. Seriously. And I'm sure Catalina's father is very charming and all, but he's definitely also a royal ass. Just up and leaving your daughter every time the fancy strikes is not very good parenting. Also, his casual attitude when he finally showed up annoyed me a lot.

And then there's the matter of Iverson and Catalina's romance. I thought they rubbed along pretty well, but I'm just a bit tired of the insta-love that's creeping into these novels lately. And it goes hand in hand with the insta-knowing of each other's souls that weirds me out. I mean, it takes time to get to figure out what makes someone tick and you don't do it within 5 minutes of meeting someone. I did like that they didn't immediately jump into bed, but they just kept talking during their kissing and other intimacies and not in a way that you'd think, it sounded a bit too polite for the things they were doing and it weirded me out a bit. Also, can you gasp while kissing? I've been trying to picture it, but it sounds rather hard to me.

And I really disliked that after Iverson forgives Catalina for keeping one big thing from him and then not even half a day later finds out ANOTHER, even BIGGER thing she didn't tell him, he's just 'she didn't trust me, how can I make her trust me?'. I mean WHAT?? SHE was the one that did something wrong and he's trying to figure out how to make her trust him? WTF? I would have liked for him to have made a bigger deal out of this, cause Catalina's been agonising over it for most of the story and then it's just swept under the rug like it's no biggie. Which it was.

Mostly, I just wasn't feeling it and if I had been I could have probably gotten over my complaints. The writing is pretty good and engaging, but the story itself just didn't seem to work for me.

My rating: 2 stars