21 January 2019

Cocktails in Camelot by Marianne Mancusi

Cocktails in Camelot (Timeless Love Book 1)Cocktails in Camelot by Marianne Mancusi
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Book 1 of 3 in the Timeless Hearts series
Read: 20 Jan 2019

Synopsis (written by me): Katherine Jones, who goes by Kat, is an editor for a New York fashion magazine but she is pretty low on the ranking list, so she is sent out to a renaissance fair because medieval styles are supposedly the next fashion trend. She has no desire to be there and is not enjoying herself, so when she gots knocked back to the actual 12th century, she is miserable and tries to find her way back home without altering history too much.

I picked this up on Kindle Unlimited because I was looking for a light time travel romance. Unfortunately, this one was a little too light for even my tastes. It is basically a retelling of Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court but not as much fun. I ended up skimming large chunks of it, only to find that it ends in a cliffhanger, but I am not interested enough in the outcome to wade through the second book.

The first thing to hit me was the pop culture references. There were so many of them that I couldn't help but think that they will make the book feel dated in no time. In fact, a couple of them made me wonder about the age of the author. For instance, the heroine Kat is supposed to be in her 20s but she makes a reference to the old TV show Dance Fever. I am in my 50s and I barely remember that show (which ended in 1987); I can't imagine that my 20-something kids or any of their friends have even heard of it.

Secondly, this is supposed to be a romance but I didn't feel any chemistry between the hero Lancelot and the heroine Kat. When Lancelot gave this big speech about how he is attracted to all the goodness in Kat, I couldn't figure out where he got that from because it didn't show on the page. Kat had spent the entire time up to that point complaining.

Despite the book's faults, I got the feeling that the author has enough skill to write a decent book in a different genre. For instance, all the pop culture references probably wouldn't feel as jarring in a YA book. I did a small amount of research and found that author currently writes middle-grade and YA fantasy under the name Mari Mancusi, which is probably a better fit for her style.

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