Review: Sacrament

Title: Sacrament

Author: Susan Squires

Page Count: 357 pages

Publisher: Love Spell

Genre: Gothic Romance (according to the book spine anyway)

Year of Publication: 2002

50 words or less: In Regency England, a destitute little lady (Sarah Ashton) has to defend her failing property from nosy neighbor Julien Davinoff (tall, dark, and brooding.) Once that’s settled, Sarah has to work on finding out what’s so strange about Mr. Davinoff, escape certain doom, and fall in love. Hypothetically anyway.

Oh, Sacrament. Sacrament, Sacrament, Sacrament. I’d heard such good things about you before I finally read you, and I seriously feel let down, in more ways than just one.

This book had an identity crisis almost from page one. What kind of book is Sacrament? Who knows? Frankly, who cares? As a whole, this book had such potential, and all of it was squandered mercilessly.

The first part of the book introduces the motley crew of characters and sends Sarah Ashton, a supposedly independent and self-sufficient woman who in fact had all the appeal and personality of vegetable peelings, on a wild goose chase, trying to find some proof that she owns Clershing, her family home, and can thus successful defend her claim against that of her creepy neighbor, Julien Davinoff. We also meet Sarah’s psychotic friend Corinna, who is completely unlikeable and plainly has Sarah wrapped around her little finger, a fact that is pretty much an instant turnoff for me in any book whatsoever.

So Sarah finds out what happened to the deed (sorry to ruin that for you) and through a series of banal but painfully detailed social functions, manages to not only repeatedly run into Davinoff but also to watch Evil Corinna become completely obsessed with him. Sarah wears a dress with a waist! Her boring pseudo-suitor George babbles about blood! Corinna finally goes off the deep end and kidnaps Davinoff and almost kills him! Then we find out that the alleged reason why Sarah puts up with Corinna’s nonsense is because back in the day, Corinna convinced Sarah to lose her virginity to some strange underage boy while they were all under the influence of magic mushrooms. It was a creepy interlude that did nothing for the characters, ground the plot to a standstill, and left me feeling like I wanted to get my tongue scraped.

Once Sarah finally (of course) rescues Davinoff, she carts him off to yet another English countryside locale and helps him kick the drugs Corinna had him on. She finds out he’s a vampire but doesn’t seem to care. Immediately after that Davinoff tries to bail on her because converting people to vampires is wrong; never mind that he’s done it twice already. Sarah traverses Europe to finally track him down and convince him of her true feelings; at this point I had covered so much of the book that, no matter how much I wanted to bury the book out in the yard, I made myself finish it.

Sacrament was easily the most disappointing book I’ve read in a long time. I kept reading, page after page, chapter after chapter, hoping the book would get better, but it never came close. The silver lining to all of this: it was a library book, so at least I didn’t spend money on it!

Overall Grade: F

I’ll be switching to something else for my next book, I think I’ve had enough paranormal romance for a little bit and I definitely need a change of scene.