PRINTED IN FLIRTY PINK INK!

I finally got my hands on one of the manga titles from the Harlequin Ginger Blossom line that has been released by HQ and Dark Horse. I was vaguely terrified. You would think they had a recipe for success... two power house publishers working together, good illustrators and a story by a famous romance novelist. The illustrations are beautiful, but the plot is really thin (which is a generous description).

In summary: Girl meets Prince when her mother wins a date with him through a raffle at a romance convention. They fall in love immediately, but unfortunately, the prince must marry a wealthy girl to save his bankrupt country! Duty before love! They can never see one another again! Wait! It turns out the wealthy girl is secretly in love with the prince's personal secretary! Next they discover a diamond mine! Hurray! Now the prince and the commoner can fall in love forever!!!

The best part... the whole book is "PRINTED IN FLIRTY PINK INK!"

I can safely say that I have never read a Debbie Macomber novel, and never will after this. This imprint is just a bunch of wasted potential, the dialogue is stilted, the story is too stream lined to be believable, the FLIRTY PINK INK is obnoxious, and its expensive! The Bachelor Prince is about half the length of your normal manga, is 9.99, and treats its readers like they have the IQs of chihuahuas.

The Harlequin Pink imprint is aimed at ages 12 and up, there is another imprint (Harlequin Violet) for ages 16 and up. I don't know if those are PRINTED IN FLIRTY VIOLET INK!

Ashame of you Dark Horse! Ashame of you!

Want to see this terror for yourself? Dark Horse has a preview on their website. Although disappointingly the preview is not PRINTED IN FLIRTY PINK INK!