Book Review: Suddenly You

When one has a twenty-five page legal brief due in five days, there is really no better way to spend an evening than with a Lisa Kleypas book, right? Who cares about First Amendment rights of high school teachers, anyway?

Anyway, I retreated into fantasy land last night with Suddenly You and boy, was I glad to be there. If you read this blog regularly, you might have noticed that I've been more than a little dissolutioned with romance novels as of late. I don't know why, I just haven't loved a book in a while.

But I loved this book! It was like my own personal fantasy! The plot takes place in the 1830's, and Amanda is a thirty year-old spinster who independently supports herself by writing novels. The hero is instantly taken with her slightly "plump" figure and sharp mind. He even tells her that her mind is what is most attractive to him. *Sigh!* And of course he's a rich hottie, because, of course, what would be he point if he weren't, right? And their relationship progresses through friendship that is sweet and genuine, mostly because Kleypas did a great job of demonstrating the mutual respect they have for each other.

My only complaints were the formulatic romance novel plot twists towards the end, and also, unfortunately, the same complaint I had with the last book I read, Ladies Man. It's stupid, I know, but I just don't like a heroine that's more than two years older than the hero! It's just a preference, like how I hate it when a heroine is described as "willowy thin," "pixie-like," "delicate" or "short" (I have a strange aversion to abnormally small people). Also, I don't like black-haired heroines. Uh uh. Amanda in this book was short, but at least she had curves and long auburn hair.

Lindsey's Grade: A-