Pirates.

I've been in the mood for a good pirate romance. Pirates by Linda Lael Miller has time travel and pirates? It shows up on a best pirate romance book list? It got decent customer reviews on Amazon? (click here) Sign me up! First off let me say that my expectations for this book were really high. I was craving something wonderful; a love story with a sexy swashbuckling hero (I'm looking at you Capt. Jack Sparrow) and some high seas adventure. I'm a pirate fanatic for shit's sake. I love pirates. I don't care that in reality they were grimy and liked to drink all the time. Doesn't matter one iota. So what if they were a rough and tumble lot? I want one. I need one. I didn't get one with this book. Was I reading the same book that got 4 out of 5 stars on Amazon? People what is your criteria for a good pirate romance? I must be working off of a different list of requirements here. I thought this book was awful. I'm sorry to all the fans of it. I'm glad you like it. To people that want to read it...well go for it and I wish you better results.

The Short: Phoebe is recently divorced, jobless, dog-less, family-less. She gets a flyer in the mail to come to the Caribbean and check out condos. She goes. She reads about Duncan Rourke on the flight. After she's there she has to dress up like a wench. She gets in the elevator to go downstairs and ends up in 1780. Duncan is a notorious pirate fighting for America's independence in the Revolutionary War. He finds Phoebe in his basement and thinks she's a spy. He locks her in a room. Old Woman (Yes her name really is Old Woman because her real name connotes a powerful spell! Don't laugh. I'm serious.) has been predicting Phoebe's arrival but no one believes her. She basically says that they're going to get married and have a ton of babies. Duncan discovers Phoebe's watch and purse. Inside her purse is some U.S.A. currency, a tampon, credit cards, etc. Duncan starts to think that Phoebe isn't a spy after all. He goes to sea. He's gone for an indeterminable length of time. His best friend gets shot. Duncan comes home. Phoebe convinces Old Woman to help her leave the island. She flees and gets a job at a pub. Duncan comes to rescue her. Phoebe realizes that she is in love with Duncan. Duncan and Phoebe get it on. They go back to Duncan's hideaway island. At some point (its foggy as to when) Old Woman tells Phoebe her name, although Phoebe obviously has diarrhea of the mouth and saying Old Woman's name is "big magic" when spoken aloud. Phoebe and Duncan get married. Duncan "can't live without" Phoebe. Back in present time a woman buys a copy of "Duncan Rourke, Pirate or Patriot?" and reads the ending of the book; this lets us in on what happens to Pheebs and Dunc.

I guess the main thing that really ruined this book for me was the fact that Phoebe decided she was in love with Duncan and they hadn't really even spent any time together. Umm...she has this great revelation on page 80; up to that point there had been no indication that they were even in each other's company long enough to form a tenuous bond, let alone an all-consuming love! Totally unbelievable. I usually am not swayed into liking/disliking a book by its plot. I'm a character girl and everyone knows it. The characters weren't even enough to redeem this one. Phoebe is a blech character. She has "nothing" in her own time...so she takes a free vacation to look at condos? That's a good choice. That's what I would do in her situation. Definitely. She says the wrong thing and then immediately regrets it and acts like a child. She's obnoxious and weepy. Duncan isn't an appealing guy either. He's not far behind Phoebe. He cries because of Phoebe sprouting off psychobabblebullshit on several occasions. I love a secretly-sensitive-tough-as-nails guy as much as the next girl. Too bad Duncan wasn't one of those. He was only pretending to be for the first 20 pages.

I realize that this is an older book. However, 15 years shouldn't make for such notable awkwardness. Phoebe is really good for making little comments referencing "her time." Ho boy! Those comments show their age. The author knows no moderation. She should've (at the very least) made her heroine a little smarter and less stereotypical. The woman talks about Kathy Lee Gifford and never shuts up! From start to finish this book reads like a bad made for t.v. movie based on a really horrendous soap opera. It was so awful that I actually laughed out loud at the really ridiculous parts. The writing tries very hard to be heavy and lyrical and full of hidden meanings (seriously there is at least one poorly disguised metaphor per page) but it reads like a crazy rant hell-bent on being philosophical.

I feel bad for dogging this book and having nothing positive to say about it. Many people like it; I would've liked to join their secret club. This breaks the mold for me...I rarely dislike a book so much that I end up skimming over large chunks of it. I don't even know if "skimming" is the right word for what I did with this novel. Maybe "flew over the pages looking for something worth reading" is a more apt description. I'm so disappointed. Am I possibly mixed up here? Is there another book by the same title/author that is often mistaken for this one? Did I read the wrong one? If so, can I borrow someone else's copy?

Final Grade: F.