Crap Alert - Boys, Please Skip this Post

The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever

Julia Quinn

Harper Collins

There has been a LOT of stuff going on in my personal life lately and I've been in a pissy mood as a result. After the ritualized torture of a session with my personal trainer this weekend, I wandered (okay, limped) over to the bookstore to see what I could find to improve my mood. Bad idea. Nothing spoke to me. I've blogged elsewhere about how books tend to choose me, but on Saturday morning, nothing or nobody was calling my name.

Since it is sacrilege to go away from my Happy Place empty-handed, I decided to try an old stand-by and I made my way over to the romance section. That's right, loyal readers, I picked up a Regency romance. The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever follows the classic Regency formula:

• Girl meets boy and falls in love
• Boy is an entirely inappropriate choice
• Girl and boy end up hitting the sheets and girl's virtue is compromised
• Boy's honour forces them to marry
• Girl and boy have a falling out
• Boy and girl have an epiphany that they are destined to be together
• Girl and boy kiss and make up and live happily ever after in a manor house with a whack of children, some optional hunting dogs, and a lot of money

Why reading this crap cheers me up I have no idea. I think we'd probably have to pay a therapist a lot of money to figure it out. At any rate, Miss Miranda and her diaries held true to form. Maybe it's the comfort of the no-surprise ending. Maybe it's the old fashioned idea of a gentleman being bound by his honour. Maybe it's just the sex scenes (remember ... no boyfriend here.) Maybe it's the fact that when I dropped the novel in the tub when I was startled by the phone, I just didn't care. Whatever the reason, Miss Miranda didn't disappoint and helped me shed my gloomies. One pathetic star out of five.