Customer Reviews

Beauty Queen (Lear Family Trilogy, Book 2)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book follows the second sister in the Lear family. Daughters of a selfmade man who is dying. He wants his daughters lives to get on track, so he can die knowing they are happy and secure. Sometimes his meddling is not good, but that is a father, eh?

In the second sister, Rebecca. She was perfect daughter, perfect beauty queen, perfect wife and then perfect mother. None of that prepares her for life's realities when hubby dumps her for younger woman.

She has to struggle to make a way for her son and herself, but along the way she had to find her own self value.

As she is getting footing she joins a political campaign and immediately comes to verbal blows with Matt Parrish. Only, she is not the same only perfect person...hurrah!!!

A gentle journey of self discovery for the character, under the masterful pen of London!!!

Gotta go get sister #1

I was incredibly surprised at this second installment of the Lear sisters. After reading material girl, which absolutely fantastic, I was excited to read about Rebecca- who was Miss Texas in her youth and had only a divorce and a son to show for it, to only be shocked at the silly writing and dialogue as well as the shallow and meaningless relationship between Rebecca and Matt-the hero.

I would like to say this first: London is a gifted writer, she is deep without being overwhelming and funny without turning into a comedian instead of a romance writer. She has an amazing grasp of characterization and her dead-on attention to detail that go on during human dramas. But most of all her build-up between two strangers that inevitably fall in love and steamy yet touching love scenes are the main reasons why I keep buying her books.

However, everything I had just mentioned was sadly lacking in Beauty Queen. I loved Rebecca and that's all I loved about the book. Although the writing started witty and sharp, it became goofy, immature and tiresome when no shift in tone was evident.
Matt, an arrogant and playboy lawyer, was the most shallow and immature hero I have ever read. You had zero empathy for the man and could not relate to his careless regard for anything but himself. Unlike Rebecca, there was hardly any build-up to his character and all you saw of him was his constant sheepish grin and arrogance. And for 80% percent of the book they were like 2 girlfriends having it out with each other instead of 2 adults that were attracted to each other. Then before you even know what hit you, Matt makes a miraculous transformation and falls in love with Rebecca. What did I miss???

In all honesty, I was left baffled that I was reading a Julia London book and the only explanation I could think of is that it was deliberate she left the second installment shallow and immature that drastically shifts from her usual style.

I hope the 3rd Lear sister gets just as an incredible story as her first sister did, and be content with the second one being a major slip up.

In the second installment of London's update Lear trilogy, middle daughter Rebecca is recently divorced with a toddler in tow, and looking for a job to help boost her sagging confidence. A chance meeting with a handsome stranger has disastrous results, particularly when she is asked to join a political campaign, and he turns out to be one of the key strategists, a bossy trial lawyer who is exasperated that she was chosen to be on the campaign.

As she struggles to find her confidence and not be just another pretty face, Rebecca and Matt start to work side by side, and initially butt heads at every turn, but start to develop feelings for each other. Matt even spends time with her son, who cannot seem to garner any of his father's attention. Soon both discover that they don't really like the candidate they are trying to get elected.

This one is not quite up to par with the fist in the series, though it does retain the funny dialog and humorous internal musings. The initial meeting between Rebecca and Matt is priceless!

When the heroine calls the hero Big Pants, and the hero calls the heroine Mork, watch out! Rebecca Lear is reeling from her husband's defection to a newer, younger model. Having married and had a baby young, she doesn't have any training. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Except if you count being Miss Texas at one stage. Aw, poor little rich girl! Nobody's more surprised when an upcoming senator asks her to be on his political campaign. That includes Matt Parrish, lawyer, also on the campaign. He truly considers Rebecca a complete airhead from another planet. Armed with a zillion self-help books (eg. Surviving Divorce: A Woman's Path to Starting Over) and making 3 daily positive affirmations for herself, Rebecca is Discovering Herself. Guess what? She's not a doormat, she can think (Matt gets a few surprises with this one), and she's incredibly creative. All of which Matt finds out the hard way (sorry, pun intended!). The delight in this book is watching two honest but flawed characters fall in love, with a very blurred line between comedy and psychological insight. You'll cringe and cheer for Rebecca, and groan when Matt puts his foot in his mouth again. As a bonus, you get to enjoy all the wacky secondary characters drifting around in the background. Oh, and Rebecca gets totally, humiliatingly, uninhibitedly smashed, much to Matt's delight. Does he take advantage of her? Ooooh, yessssssss...

Julia London has done it again, I loved, loved "Material Girl" I could not wait for Beauty Queen and when it arrived at the book store I almost fell over from the excitement of seeing it on the bookshelf. I enjoyed reading Beauty Queen it was so funny Rebbeca had me laughing this whole story was an enjoyable read, I was not disappointed at all. I am trying to wait patiently for the third book " Rouges Of Regent" I am sure I will also enjoy that book as well.

Happy Reading
Lisa

Everyone believes that Rebecca Reynolds lives the life of a princess with her being the middle daughter of the immense Lear holdings. However, the mother of a small son, her gilded cage crashes when her spouse leaves her for a younger model and her father announces he is dying from cancer. Her confidence smashed to smithereens, Rebecca looks for employment, but no one wants a former Miss Texas whose only experience is that of arm candy to her father and her husband.

However that changes when State Senator Tom Masters asks her to help him with his campaign to become the Lieutenant Governor. Also working on the campaign is attorney Mike Parrish. As Mike and Rebecca work closely together, respect surfaces that soon turn to love. However, she begins to uncover questionable practices that if surfaced will derail the individual who deserves Rebecca's loyalty for giving her a chance to prove herself, but she wonders what will be the cost to her new found soul?

The second "King Lear" contemporary Texas romance is intriguing due to a delightful heroine. Though Mike is a fine protagonist struggling with the direction his legal partnership seems to be heading, the enjoyable story line belongs to Rebecca. She remakes herself into someone she can respect once she realizes how useless her life has been. Though her spouse comes across as a womanizing dirty rat who makes no time for his son, fans will appreciate this second chance at life and love story that works because Rebecca makes it so.

Harriet Klausner

This book was a cute quick read. I loved the plot and characters!!

After reluctantly giving Material Girl a three star rating and not being overly excited about reading Beauty Queen (I would though because I love JL's books), I was really happy when I got to the end of the book and thoroughly enjoyed the entire book from page one to the end. Matt Parrish was as intriguing and as exciting a hero as Julian Dane (Ruthless Charmer), Arthur Christian (Beautiful Stranger), The Duke (Wicked Angel), and we can't forget Michael Ingram (A Devil's Love). It was fun to watch this romance develop through the book and how they rediscovered themselves with the help of each other. However, I did think after the blow out at the Four Seasons, it should have been her apologizing to him and not vice versa. She did string him along and she was a bit 'empty' and she knew Matt was right but JL had him groveling, which is usually what happens in most her novels, even if the heroine is wrong. And though it's fun to watch the hero grovel occasionally, Matt was the perfect hero and Rebecca was the one with the issues. But all in all, I really enjoyed it, could hardly put it down. Her writing was witty, her characters believable, and it made for another page turner by an extremely talented writer.

I loved Material Girl so I was excited to buy this one for my Kindle. However, this one does not come as close to the first one. It is seriously like 2 different authors. There was no major conflict. The only conflict was solved with still a 1/4 of the book left, and it was a minor, "hurt my feelings" sort of conflict. Not much of a romance novel, in that way. Also, I just liked Jake better from MG better. He had more of a presence, Matt didn't really have anything special.

This is the second in a three-part series. I thought it was just as good as the first book, Material Girl (Lear Family Trilogy, Book 1). Rebecca's story is a little lighter than Robin's but there are still some heavy parts. Both Rebecca and Matt have a lot of self-discovery coming and they beat each other up emotionally along the way.
The dogs and Matt's secretary keep things light. I love how her dog collection keeps growing and Bean is so funny! :-)
I can't wait to read the third book and see if Aaron ever gets his head out of...the dark...and gets Bonnie back.