Title: Strangers at Dawn Author: Elizabeth Thornton
Published: November 2, 1999
Genre(s): Romance: Historical
Page Count: 368
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:Throughout Sara Carstairs' trial for the murder of her sister's husband, Max Worthe had studied her cool demeanor in the dock, fascinated by her even as he was convinced she was guilty as charged. For three years after the ravishing heiress was acquitted, he used the power of his newspaper to pursue the truth—hoping to find the still-undiscovered body of the murder victim and at last prove Sara's guilt. But not only had the body disappeared without a trace, so had Sara Carstairs....
When Max finally catches up with Sara by sheer chance, he doesn't even know it's her...at first. By the time he does, it's too late—they've already spent a night together that both of them know they will never forget and can never repeat. Has he fallen in love with the woman of his dreams or with a cold-blooded murderess? And has she put herself in the hands of a knight in shining armor—or a ruthless scoundrel bent on destroying her?
An accused murderer as a heroine? That sounds great!
This is what I said to myself prior to picking up Strangers at Dawn by Elizabeth Thornton. The entire experience, however, turned out not-so-great. I’m honestly at a loss, because this book was so poorly written I don’t think I can even discuss the merits of the story or characters at all.
No matter how “great” your story is, if I can barely read your prose, it’s completely wasted. And that’s pretty much what happened here.
The story, essentially, is that Sara appears to have murdered her abusive brother-in-law (presumably in self-defense). Lord Max runs is a newspaper magnate and really wants to get at the truth of the issue, even though Sara was acquitted by the jury, since there’s literally zero material evidence against her.
Anyhoo.
So basically Lord Max hates Sara and thinks she’s a murderous harlot. He thinks about how fun it would be to strangle her on the regular. Then, suddenly, he’s got a boner because her hair is “so pretty” and now he’s on her side, going to help her discover who actually murdered the brother-in-law. Okay??? Consistency is clearly not the name of the game in Strangers at Dawn.
The majority of the novel is kind of a suspenseful mystery, but super poorly done. Like I said above, Thornton is a terrible writer, who relies way to much on modern idiom and other strange anachronisms. There was neither suspense nor mystery here. The Big Reveal was gratuitous and even a little raunchy. The romance was absolutely unbelievable. The side characters were horrendously annoying and unlikeable.
I have absolutely nothing positive to say about this book. Which is a shame, really, since murderer-heroine is a great idea. Unfortunately, the entire book was a bunch of soggy, smelly, garbage. I don’t want to think about it anymore, honestly.
