Release Date: March 26th 2013
Audiobook Length: 10 Hours 38 Minutes
Genre: Historical Romance
Publisher: Avon
A summary of The Miss Ran Away With The Rake goes like this; Mistaken identities, house parties and feuding family set the background as a sensible well-doer gets mixed up with a determined manic pixie dream girl. Needless to say, this book was delightful.
Mr. Dishforth and Ms. Spooner have fallen in love via correspondence, ala You’ve Got Mail Style. When a chance encounter brings them to the same house party, they are eager to discover who one another really is. The only thing is Mr. Dishforth is really Henry Seldon and Ms. Spooner is Daphne Dale. FYI, The Dale and Seldons have been feuding for generations. . .
You can see where this is going.
I liked that this book jumps right into Henry and Daphne meeting. They think they’ve found their respective pen pals but upon learning each other’s real identities they spend the rest of the book convincing themselves that it just can’t be.
Boyle has to push the dramatic irony angle hard. All sorts of things prevent Daphne and Henry from getting factual proof of the identity of their penpals including Boyle’s seeming favorite trope–impeccable comedic timing.
It’s a simple premise that relies on laughable coincidences to keep things going. There are lots of comic scenes. . . I mean they aren’t funny ha ha but more like “lol I see what you are doing there.”
Daphne sparkled more for me as a character than Tabitha did in the first book. Daphne has quirks like how she has conversations with inanimate objects and dogs, plus she enjoys filling in the words for conversations she can’t hear, much to our sensible hero’s entertainment in true MPDG fashion.
I do like the way Boyle frames this story to have taken place in the past, the narrator already knows what is going to happen and this gives it a more fairytale-nursery rhyme feel. Boyle lays out the relationship-building well but her endings always feel a little like a fast paced race to HEA.
Also, there is this odd bit were innkeepers and common people (so…the poor folk) decide to help Henry and Daphne get their happy ending and IDK…. it felt a little off to me. Like they only showed commoners as helpers to the rich.
Then there is the Epilogue, it was a little too sweet for my taste. I mean it felt so saccharine I almost got a cavity.
Otherwise, what can I say? I enjoy the familiarity I’m getting with this world of silly, charming, and funny characters. I feel like Boyle is just having fun with her stories.
