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29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Luke-warm Romance, October 5, 2006
This is a very luke-warm, inane, romance. I didn't hate it but I didn't love it either. The heroine is luke-warm, both in character and romance. She is one of the writers who is friends with Lucy, from SEX, LIES, AND ON-LINE DATING. It looks like each friend is going to have her own story. I didn't care for them as secondary characters and they make poor primary characters. It seems they only have a life in the books they write. Clare Wingate writes romances. Her mother is ashamed of the books she writes. She catches her fiance in the closet, in more ways than one. First he is having an encounter with the washer repair man. Two he doesn't think he is gay. This is just one of several romances that have gone wrong for Clare. She immedately gets drunk and ends up in bed with the bane of her childhood. She thinks they have been intimate and he lets her think it. Only later does he tell her they just slept. Sebastion is the son of her mother's gardner and handyman. He loves to give her a hard time. Later, only after she has gone through the embarassment of telling him she is aids free does he tell her they didn't do it. He was a lukewarm committment phobe. Later, they decide to have an affair with no strings, sound familiar? Then of course after several months, she decides she loves him, so he splits. But he cannot stay away and so we have a happy ending. The romance was tepid, the plot was slow, the whole thing was just so forgettable. The last three novels by Ms Gibson have not been up to her standard. I really don't want to read any more tales of these four pathetic women. Alas, I noticed her next novel will be about Maddie Jones. You'll have to take your chances with this one.
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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Less than stellar, October 1, 2006
The title of this review pretty much says it all. While the book is still a decent romance novel, I was very disappointed throughout reading it (hoping it would get better) and even more so once it came to its end. I have come to expect better from Rachel Gibson (one of my 5 favorite authors up to now). The greatest disappointment lay in that there wasn't at least one line or scene which gave my heart a little squeeze or skip. The book was just so average and unexciting. (For a brief summary, see reviewer Harriet Klausner's description.) Although I have to admit that part of the let-down might have come from months and months of waiting for this book (and having read the great 'preview'), I also think that the book was uninspired. And at least two sentences I have seen (almost) verbatim in previous Rachel Gibson books. Sure, an author should be allowed to repeat some lines (and I have noticed those 'repeats' before), but in this book, it started to be annoying. If there are going to be lines out of "See Jane Score", couldn't there also be the endearing thoughts Luc has about Jane, or the hot dialogue? Or the love and longing from "Truly Madly Yours"? It gets old to have a commitment-phobic guy in every book, to have the woman always realize she's in love first, to have an overly macho guy (is a man only a hot alpha male if he doesn't like - or pretends not to like - small dogs, can't tell colors, hates shopping, is lace-phobic, etc...?). And while I appreciate the fact that 'romance novel' does not have to mean constant interaction between the male and female protagonists, but can also include great friendships and personal growth, I found the focus on the separate growth of these characters too much. Also, I think the reader never learns what Clare likes about Sebastian apart from the fact that he is hot, that she had a crush on him as a kid, that he can tease her like no one else and that he gave her a thoughtful gift? It would have been nice to have read more about the small quirks they noticed in each other and came to love or other thoughts they have about each other. And maybe, if one of Gibson's male characters came to realize he loves the woman before she does, the endings would start to be more emotional and not seem like a sensible wrap-up. (The formula of "woman realizes she loves him, tells man, he freaks out, little while later also realizes he loves her, confesses his love, happy ending" has been used a bit too much by Gibson, I think). If you're a Gibson fan, you'll probably want to read this anyway (and I'm glad I did), but don't expect to learn much about Lucy and Quinn (no direct scenes with both of them in it) or to have much magic (in the way of "Truly Madly Yours", "See Jane Score", or "Sex, Lies and Online Dating"). It's still a good effort, but there were no emotional dialogues or scenes that made me heart feel a bit funny and glad and reminded me of why I read romance novels in the first place. PS: (The sex scenes were okay, although one of them did feel very much like a Luc&Jane one.)
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
I'm In No Mood for This Book, October 20, 2006
Unfortunately, this much-anticipated book turned out to be a bust. Note to all authors: If you transition by using months (ie. By December,... It was now June...) more than once in a novel, you're getting bored and chances are, you'll start boring your readers as well. The book starts out on an intriguing note as Clare wakes up to find she's apparently spent the night with the sexy hero, but from there, it quickly begins a downward plummet of ho-hum plot action. As it turns out, she didn't do anything with Sebastian, a sad fact that won't be remedied until three-quarters of the way through the book. (Where is the romantic plot, you ask?) The hero is constantly in another town, only dropping by for sporadic visits that could take place over years or months--Gibson changes months and flashes through time so generically that it's impossible to tell. When he's finally around, the romance fizzles rather than sizzles. As heroines go, Clare is self-absorbed and whiney, static and shallow. Her own romance novels are excerpted in another way for Gibson to putter around in this let-down and avoid writing the actual book, and they ring false and silly. Her friends are more interesting than she is and even they are stale by the novel's end. In all, the characters are a yawn, the plot is filler, and the romance is nonexistent.
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