I was recently home in Arkansas and before I returned to Seattle, I asked my mom for a plane book. When I’m looking for a book to read on a plane, I am generally looking for something I can read quickly and throw away when I arrive in my destination city. Humorous books by people like Janet Evonovich, something like Bridget Jones Diary, or honestly, a good cheesy romance novel.

I decided to take Faye Kellerman’s “The Quality of Mercy”. It is billed as a romance/adventure/mystery novel set in Elizabethan times, with William Shakespeare as one of the main characters. Sounds fine. Why not take it for the plane?

Boo. I’m left saying boo.

When I was about 100 pages in and our lead male and lead female still hadn’t met, I knew this was not a good plane book that I was reading.

This book was a waste of time. There were a number of times that I thought about stopping the book, but it is near impossible for me to do that. I have to know how things end! I kept hoping there would be some redeeming moment. That the romance and adventure would step it up a notch. Unfortunately, it didn’t. And after a whopping 580 pages, that makes for major disappointment.

First of all, for a romance novel, the romance sucked. There was a significant amount of bodice ripping, but most of it was rape or with prostitutes. Not fun. And the lead female, Rebecca, who was supposed to be all brave and adventurous was awfully whiny. And got slapped around by just about every male character in the book without protest. Perhaps it was supposed to be a sign of the times, but I kept waiting for her to stand up for herself. She was slapped around by her cousins, brother, father, and even Shakespeare. In fact, at one point she talks about how things were going better with her father lately, there was only the occasional stern word and backhand slap and she was glad.

Bleh.

In the story, Shakespeare is trying to discover the murderer of his dear friend and mentor and comes across Rebecca, a young woman whose whole family are secret Jews. The patriarch of this family was a real person who was the doctor to Queen Elizabeth and was tried and executed for treason. This story follows that real life story arc but fabricates most of the family members, including Rebecca’s story.

And by the way, according to this novel, Queen Elizabeth was a lecherous, wicked old lesbian.

Huh.

The meandering book includes duels, Rebecca dressing as a man to enjoy some freedom, battles at sea with ships being hijacked, the Spanish Inquisition, ghosts, prostitutes, secret Papists, and a dozen other crazy story lines. You would think with all that, it would be fun. I mean, Shakespeare is one of the main characters! I was hoping for at least more witty references to his plays. Randomly uttered quotes, people or events who were obvious inspiration for his characters, but I found even that lacking.

Sigh.

Apparently Faye Kellerman is a top selling author of mystery series and I can only hope that they are better than this particular tale that is not of her normal series.

Skip it.