What A Woman Needs - Caroline Linden

I am definitely becoming spoiled but all the good books I've been reading lately and I find that my tolerance for silly plots is not as big as it once was?

In this book the hero is courting an innocent young girl who sees him as her ticket to a life in London. Because she is a rich heiress and he is penniless her guardian, Charlotte, assumes the hero must be a fortune hunter (which he is) and sets out to not only forbid the match but to totally ruin him. To prove he is not an honourable gentleman she first tries to seduce him and when he (not knowing who she is) responds to that she humiliates him and spreads some horrible gossip about him so no one will receive him in the future. Despite all this when her ward disappears without a trace Drake, the hero, sets out to help Charlotte find her. The same woman who believed horrible lies about him and spread the word everywhere... So although she ruined his life socially he still wants to help her... and although she believes the worst from him she still feels he can't be all that bad. Does this make any sense? And why didn't he just tell her the truth about that gossip? It's not like he didn't have the opportunity with him breaking into her house and then she breaking into his bedroom. And after they arrive in London and she stays at his parent's house it's his own mother (who seems loving and caring when speaking to her son) who tells Charlotte that Drake is weak and incapable of facing responsibilities. He will never marry her and he has always been a disappointment to his father! Wow, with a mother like this who needs enemies...

After this I decided this one qualified for DNF status!!

But I persevered and read it till the end. There was a mystery about something Charlotte was in possession of and that was what led to Susan's disappearance but it wasn't all that interesting to me. And both Drake and Charlotte kept behaving like children who could have solved half their problems if they just talked to each other. And the same could be said of his parents who, it seems, had their own dose of misunderstandings to deal with.

Grade: C-

I have the second book in the series in my TBR pile and I'm hesitating between getting rid of it unread or just pick it up next and be done with it...