Random Romance Reviews

I thought I'd write a quick blog to review the books I read over the Christmas holiday.  First up: Believe by Victoria Alexander.  Now, Alexander is a writer I enjoy.  I am almost always pleasantly surprised after I read one of her books.  So even though Believe is a re-issue, her name alone was a selling point for me.  Another selling poing was the cover.

Come on, is that or is that not a holiday-themed cover?  I bought this book because I wanted to read a Christmas story.  BUT THEY TRICKED ME!  This was a freakin' time travel book.  I hate time travel!  The only Christmas stuff that was involved was that it was Christmas time when the heroine travel back to King Arthur's court.  Yeah, that's right.  And who is the hero, you ask?  Galahad.

I got about halfway through this book before I quit.  The heroine's use of modern language and Galahad's acceptance of it was too much, but also I was just bored.  Time travel is dumb, authors.  Stop using it!

Next up, A Precious Jewel by Mary Balogh.  This is another re-issue by an author I like.  There's nothing wrong with this book, per se, but it didn't appeal to me.  The heroine is a prositite who becomes the mistress of her favorite client, the hero.  Strangely, the fact that the heroine was a prositite didn't bother me much at all, but the fact that the hero was not very smart did bother me.

I guess I'm just really stuck in romance novel cliches, or maybe I'm just enforcing my own view of what is attractive onto the story, but I like the uber-capable manly hero.  For instance, in one scene the hero is struggling to keep his estate books, and when the heroine looks over his shoulder, it takes her about five minutes to figure it out.  It takes the hero two hours, though.

There's nothing wrong with that, really, but I guess I just didn't think that there was a whole lot else about the hero that made up for that.  The heroine disagreed and saw beyond his weaknesses, but she's a better person than I am, I suppose.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips is another favorite author.  Her books always seem so effortless written.  But I do have one complaint: she really seems to like writing about famous people.  Think about it!  Pro football players/owners/agents, pro golfers, computer moguls, first ladies, and actors.

That last group is my least favorite.  I know actors are real people with feelings and problems, etc, but I just can't relate to these characters.  I especially dislike it when she writes about child actors grown up, people that have always been famous.  That is who What I Did For Love is about.  The heroine and hero are both actors.  In fact, they rose to fame as teenagers when they started in a hit sitcom together.  It ran for eight seasons until the hero's bad-boy behavior brought the show to an end.  Georgie, the heroine, grew up to marry an action star, but he left her a year later for a glamorous do-gooder actress.

Yes, it is a blatant rip-off of Brangelina.  The similarities were impossible to miss, and I found myself getting annoyed at how pitiful Georgie was portrayed.  The last thing Jennifer Aniston needs is someone writing a romance novel based off her life that portrays her as a insecure, baby-hungry lady.  (Even though in this book, the Brangelina couple does not come off well.)

Anyhoo, Georgie is so sick of being pitied in the tabloids that when she accidentally marries her former co-star in Vegas (after they're both roofied) she begs him to remain married to her for the good press.

And you can guess what happens next.  Again, there was nothing wrong with this book, and I found it really entertaining to read, but I just couldn't bring myself to care about the problems these famous beautiful people have.  Everyone has problems.  I don't like it how romance authors try to endear famous characters to us by showing up how fucked up their lives are.  It never really works out, though, because the authors can't make them too messed up, otherwise they're unlikeable.  But to me, they're unlikeable merely because they're so privileged (and don't seem to acknowledge it).

Book Review: Natural Born Charmer

I really like Susan Elizabeth Phillips's books. She's probably the best romantic comedy writer, and I appreciate that her books are always sprinkled with a healthy dose of comedy. Funny is fun, and it keeps things from getting too heavy and serious. But for the love of God, is it so much to ask that she write a book where at least one of the people in the romantic couple have a normal family life?

I understand that she likes to write about families, and things are more interesting when there is conflict and drama, but honestly it's getting a little old! (Although, now that I think about it, I can't remember anything too dysfunctional about the characters' families in Nobody's Baby But Mine. But still, there were some issues.)

But don't pay too much attention to my ranting. Like I said, conflict is more interesting. The characters in this book are Dean Robilliard (sp?), who is a professional football playing quarterback from SEP's earlier book, Match Me If You Can, and Blue Bailey, who's new. Both of them have screwed-up family lives which play prominently in the plot of the book. But I can overlook the predictable SEP family drama here because I really enjoyed Dean's eleven year-old half-sister. SEP does a great job of writing kids, I think. I wasn't crazy about Dean when he was in Match Me If You Can, mainly because I pictured him with bleached blonde hair and diamond earrings which is just tacky on a man, but SEP toned him down here so it was good. She also managed to make Blue appealing to me, despite the fact that my least favorite physical descriptions of romance novel heroines pretty much encapsulated Blue completely. (In case you're wondering it's short, shapeless women with short black hair.)

One of my absolute favorite things about SEP is that she writes romance novels. Not romantic suspense. Not romantic thrillers. Not romantic mystery. No sub-genres, which I like. And she does it without being boring. This book is about people going about their (questionably) normal lives and falling in love. It was a fun read.

Lindsey's Grade: B+

Blah

I read these romance novels the week before last, and they were all so-so. Not bad, but nothing really great, either. Sometimes I wonder why I continue to read romance novels when I find them so unremarkable, but every once in a while a good one comes along and makes it all worthwhile!