Read in 2016 - 20: Undoing One's Enemy

Let me begin this review with a warning: Do NOT read "Undoing One's Enemy" if you are sensitive enough to spelling and grammar errors for them to take away much of your reading pleasure.

The author, Camille Oster, had either no proof reader/editor at all, or the one she had was just as careless as she.

Dear Ms Oster, please, please, please look up the correct spelling of "surprise" - it is NOT, as you insist on throughout the entire book, "surprize"! Honestly, it isn't!

Also, apart from some obvious typing errors which can (and do) happen to anyone, you can not simply switch between tenses in the same sentence, when you are on about the same thing. Here is an example: "The rooms that Lord Eldridge has afforded them were small but well-kept [...]."

Now I have my rant out of the way, I'll focus on the story.

Set in London in the (presumably) mid-1800s, Amelia Hessworth is thrown out of her home of 20-odd years when its former owner returns to take possession of the estate. Amelia's father had originally gotten hold of the property by less than honest means, leaving the heir of the ruined family with only one goal in life: Reclaim the estate, and take revenge on the impostor.

Therefore, Miss Hessworth and Lord Eldridge's first encounter does not happen under the best circumstances - they hate each other heartily, doing what they can to be spiteful, and rile each other every time their paths cross.

This is, of course, the classic setting for a love story, and it is obvious from the first moment these two meet that they are destined to be together. At this point, I could have stopped reading, since everything was so predictable. And yet, in spite of the increasing number of spelling and grammatical errors and the use of clichés left, right and centre, I did want to know how Amelia was going to cope with being (relatively) poor all of a sudden, and what twists and turns the author would offer before the wedding bells would be chiming for the heroine.

The story definitely became more interesting when Amelia met Celeste, a woman her late father had been well acquainted with.

Also, the switch between the minds of the two main protagonists is rather well done. There is even some humour every now and then, but on the whole - honestly, I can not recommend this book.

There were times when I thought of abandoning it, but I had nothing better to do on my train trips to and from work, and it was not overly long. That way, it was not really a waste of time - and not a waste of money, either, because this was yet another free ebook from Amazon's kindle store.

PS: I have just looked at the reviews on Amazon.com for this book. Seems like I was not the only one to notice the lack of proof-reading and editing.