Although the cover was stunning, I could not say this title was Priceless. Christina Dodd is a seasoned writer. This one was first published in 1992 with the cover below.I am giving it 3 exasperated stars.
I found this book at the Library book sale, again. I find a lot of my selections in the 25 cent book shelves that I haunt frequently. The book is not something I could justify putting on Amazon for sale no matter how poor I am at this moment. For one, it had the stepback image on the inside torn out and also, the two front pages were glued together. I don’t know what this book had gone through, but I’m not picky, and the cover was interesting.
I’m not one of those people who only pick up the near mint books. I don’t mind if they’re rough around the edges. As long as I can read them, and they don’t smell like cigarettes or cat-piss ,they will have a home on my bookshelf until I read them. If I love them to death, they get to stay. If they are just an average read, I will sell them, or in the case of this one, I will give them back to the .25 cent shelves at the library book sale. Someone will probably pick it up once more and read it, and they may fall in love. That is my hope.
I use to want to donate the books that I didn’t want to the RV park up the road, but they have a sign on the bookshelves that says clearly… “Please do not leave any Harlequin books, we have enough”. Although horrified that there could be enough of one type, I felt now, the RV park was unworthy of my collection, although only a few of mine were actual HRs. To think that any book ends up in the trash bothers me. I know they do, but I have my feelings, and you have yours, and I have a long obsession with the written word.
I like both covers and I would have been hard pressed to pass either of these up. But the big question is, was Adam and Bronwyn’s love priceless? When?
Here is the generic description, which is pretty far off from the plot. Goodreads has it as this:
She was one of the celebrated Sirens of Ireland, (she was not, she was the ugly duckling sister being sold off to finance her mother and father’s season in London) a captivating creature of fiery spirit. Bronwyn Edana stunned titled society with her courageous exploits and daring adventures. (No. They got that wrong also. She did stun her mother and father at the beginning of the book, but it had absolutely no significance to anything)Yet in nobleman Adam Keane, she met her match. From the moment they first clashed, the headstrong Bronwyn was swept away by a breathless desire.(swept away as in she almost slept with him from the get go. Someone needed to pull in the leash.)
Betrothed to Adam, a man branded by his haunting past, Bronwyn soon found herself at the center of a shocking conspiracy that could rock the British realm ( I guess….). From the dangerous streets of London to sweeping Boudasea Manor, she followed her most passionate dreams (she did? Her most passionate dreams consisted of running away and living with a group of artistic women who were on the edge of polite society, as she pretended to be a French goddess, because once she took off her wig and changed her clothes, she was just as breathtaking as her sisters . ? . )—and risked everything for the only man she would ever love.(Did she risk everything? I don’t remember her risking anything)
Amazon has the note from the back of the book:
Headstrong and adventurous, Bronwyn Edana regularly stuns polite society with her reckless exploits. (Again… Regularly??)But there is one type of exploit the fiery beauty ( Fiery beauty? ) has never experienced. Still innocent when it comes to men and their roguish ways, she can barely believe the breathless desire she has begun to feel for Adam Keane, a distinguished nobleman and a man with more than his fair share of liaisons in his past . . .
Now branded by a haunting tragedy, Adam will not rest until he lures Bronwyn to his bed. When a shocking conspiracy threatens their lives, he’ll bring her from the dangerous streets of London to the sweeping countryside—for he has seen enough of the world to know that a passion like theirs is priceless.
Christina Dodd has so many books out, that I had to create a shelf dedicated to all her titles. She writes historical and she writes contemporary.
If you enjoy books about the stock market, and the inner workings of prices going up and down in London,and of course understanding market values as a sexy way to bring an evening up to par, then boy, do I have a book for you!
Do you blush at the notion of first in and first out? Beg for mercy with a bull market, but cry out with desire for a hard bear? Do you get hot when you see a Ponzi scheme unravel? What about when there is talk of insider trading? Does it make you tremble with desire when you notice your cheap penny stock rises to the occasion? Shiver with ecstasy when your commodities are being fondled? Then look no more … Christina Dodd’s Priceless will make you wet!
Add to it, a taste of an ugly duckling finding her feathers and lots of confusing plot twists,terrible money grubbing parents and rude and prude sisters, and you have the book that will make your beach trip worthwhile this summer!
There are several things I did not like about this book, but remember, this is my take, and I have read that many,many people loved this story. So am I jaded by reading too many books? Or not..
If you are looking for in depth characters that you have respect for, you might want to look somewhere else. Not only was the plot all over the place, but the characters were all terrible, and had no redeeming quality.
Her sisters were over the top odd. To the point they were stereotypical cardboard. The twins were rude and annoying and the younger sister was skittish mouse like . Olivia, the sister that was usually her companion and champion to all her exploits, complained about wanting nothing more than to become a nun. This to me was off, and I had a annoyed attitude about her from the get go. I have seen lots of nuns, and none of them (nun of them lol) were this way. Nuns are very strong and they are opinionated, but they are also for the most part able to see more than one side of a person. Olivia resembled nothing more than someone who was afraid of life, and of shadows.
When she refused to go with her sister on her first outing with Adam, that was when I decided she was not at all a good sister. They,Adam had invited Bronwyn and her sister, to what use to be labeled a pagan ceremony but now was no more than a festival for the townspeople. She refused. She said it was an evil pagan ritualistic festival and she would have no part in it. She let Bronwyn go, without a care to her safety. With a man they didn’t know at all, while her parents were out of town. I wont even go into the fact that her parents left her in Adams care while they gallivanted around London. That is just bad parenting and I was pissed that they would do such a thing.
So.. she let her sister go by herself with Adam. She had told Bronwyn she did not trust or like him. But .. here sis… go unaccompanied with him for the night while mom and dad are away. Go ahead… you don’t need a chaperone to hang out with the devil. What a wonderful sister this is! So protective of her siblings. If there was ever a fire, don’t think for a moment that she would run in to save you. She had just proven to be unworthy. The whole family were a bunch of Cads. At one point Adam said he truly liked Mr. Cad.(Bronwyn’s father) Well, of course he did, the man cared nothing for the well being of his daughter. He could have his way with her anytime he wanted. The only ones who gave a shit about Bronwyn at all happened to be the servant. WTH.
The Edana sisters are suppose to be the proud,beautiful and strong, but I found nothing engaging,interesting, or strong about any of them. At the beginning of the book Bron was said to be well educated with languages.( a learned girl, something that was not looked at as a good thing) She could read Gaelic and Latin, suppose to be well versed. She had run from the clutches of Adam, after she heard him in a conversation with the servant about her being ugly,homely and gullible. An easy target. She runs to a lady she met at the beginning of the book. She hides her true identity by pretending to be a French actress. but then does not know French enough to pretend to be French. Why didn’t she pick another culture to represent? Maybe one she could understand.
Early in the book I had a hard time with Bronwyn. She found no harm whatsoever in thinking to have sex with Adam after their first date. Thanks sister who refused to go with them to the festival.
And it is then that you realize what a putz he is when he not only agrees with her ruination, but also is gleeful that she is such an easy mark, after calling her homely and manlike and pretty much ugly.
But in all other matters he was a man of integrity. I actually liked Adam. I have a thing for the dark and forlorn hero, but although it was a gallant effort, I did not think he anything to cry about. The story was just hard to read. I had a hard time following some parts and others were so uninteresting that I skipped over them, and lost nothing of the story.
Even at the end, Bronwyn’s parents were never redeemed. This bugs me. They were not shown to be nice people, and not giving them the ability to explain themselves was a disappointment.
The story idea was at first interesting, but then it proved to be more work to keep the plot line together than I do with my own works. I tried to explain the story to my husband, and I had a hard time putting it all together. That in itself made me realize there was something missing.
The villain was a vile man, and I felt that the ending for him was quick and way, way to easy. The whole villain thing seemed too lightly played. I wanted to hate the man, but he could have disappeared into the night, and I doubt it would have made much difference.
Priceless is a historical romance, and I did like the story, but in places it fell apart. Like on page 320, where he fainted, and then he was was awake the next paragraph, standing rigidly at the front of the mob of people accusing him of something fowl. And then in the next scene he was again a fainted man. Around the same chapter, I found more . The writing became confusing, and I had to read it through more than once to figure out what was happening and what the author meant. Maybe she was rushed to finish, but an editor should have caught the mistakes and working out problems at the end of the story, would have been nice. Of course, maybe the editor had read enough.
It took me two weeks to finish the book. I read a book in a day when I like it.
Romancing Myself 
