The fortune hunter

The premise for this book sounded wonderful and I coveted it for a long time on my Amazon wish list, I checked the price faithfully for months until I eventually bought it as I was so very intrigued by this tale of a love triangle between a cavalry soldier, an English heiress and the Empress of Austria.

Right from the outset I floundered with this book, maybe my lack of Hungarian royal knowledge hindered me as for the first 6 chapters or so every time they talked about the Empress Elizabeth I kept thinking “that's nice but when is the lead character Sisi that they talk about on the book description going to appear”. It took 6 chapters before they reconciled that Elizabeth was Sisi and I eventually got into the swing of things.

Or did I? You see that was the problem with this book for me, it just never really got off the starting blocks. It was all so very superficial. Aside from the character of Charlotte Baird all of the other characters were intrinsically unlikeable. Snobby, obsessed with social position and oh so many drawing room conversations made them so difficult to warm to.

Also, I know author was trying to convey Sisi's great beauty but I swear if I read about her hair any tiny waist one more time I was going to throw my kindle at the wall. It was such a bland and uninspired book, devoid of any depth of emotion.

Aside from a few hunts, a grand national and lots of emotional angst not much actually happened in all the pages. I wanted to give up on so many occasions but plodded on praying it might redeem itself. It never did and by the end I just didn't care what happened.

Very dissapointing and not one of recommend unless you like your reads with little depth.