Customer Reviews

Lady's Choice (Signature Select)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Jayne Ann Krentz has done it again! Lady's Choice is about Travis Sawyer who seeks revenge of the Grant family because he was cheated out of his promised share of the Grant' inn. Walking out of the Inn's door way when he has found out he has been cheated, he vows to seek revenge upon them.

Five years later, he walks into a coffee shop (which Juliana owns and runs) to see what Juliana Grant looked like. Instead of finding a petite blond woman he finds a tall, busty, redhead.

Juliana is a great heroine for this book. She is always one step ahead of everyone. hiring Travis to be her consultant, she falls in love with him. They do not see eye to eye on the matter of marriage but Juliana out to see that he will see it her way....and suceeds as always.

Lady's Choice is a magnificent book that shows a lot of characteristics. I highly recommend that people buy this book.

This is an early (1989) JAK reprinted under Harlequin's Signature Select line. I'm not typically a big fan of these early JAK books but, despite being somewhat dated, this is one of the better ones.

After a whirlwind romance culminating in a brilliant night of passion, Juliana Grant is sure that Travis Sawyer will propose marriage to her. He not only balks, but the worst is yet to come. Travis is actually in town to exact revenge on the Grant family for a terrible betrayal in which the Grants reneged on a promised personal and financial deal. Juliana was unaware of these events and, upon meeting Travis for the first time, not only hired him as a business consultant for her coffee house business, but also embarked on a campaign to win him as her true life partner. When she learns of Travis's plans to ruin the Grant family business, Juliana is initially angry but forgives Travis and convinces him to work instead to save the business.

JAK's early heroes can sometimes be caveman stalker types, but Travis doesn't fit that mold (thankfully). He is driven and hard, but has good reason for his actions. He's quick to recognize he has a good thing w/ Juliana and works to win her and her trust. On her part, Juliana can be overly bubbly, aggressive, and naive at times, but she's a strong character who's used to taking care of herself and going after what she wants in life--without stepping on other people to do it. Both of the main characters are appealing and are the biggest draw for this book.

Less appealing are Juliana's family members. Juliana's parents, uncle, and cousin all behaved abominably in the past and never faced up to their actions or were called to account. They drove their business into the ground twice and Travis had to bail them out both times. Even David, Juliana's one-time love interest, is basically just a handsome, good-natured drip--but at least he's not dishonest like the Grants. Maybe Travis and Juliana would have been better off starting over somewhere fresh, away from both her family and his. Juliana is a big believer in reconciliations and happy endings, tho, and she IS good at getting what she wants, so you know she manages to work everything out to a satisfactory conclusion.

This early JAK isn't up to the same standard as most of her later works, but fans interested in reading/owning some of her backlist shouldn't be disappointed in this effort.

Krentz is a successful romance writer because her formula is not the standard I hate you then I love you set up. Her characters know what they want, it just takes them some time to get there. The same stands here. Our hero & heroine are involved from the get-go so you don't have that "will they, won't they" tension...they already have! In this book, the hero's got the big secret, however, Ms. Krentz doesn't drag it out all the way to the end until you're ready to scream, "Just tell her!". She lets it go early and then our hero spends the rest of the book paying for it. However, she added a little twist to the "big" secret that makes it a little more interesting and our hero gets screwed (figuratively, not literally) even more than he thought he was going to originally, once the secret came out to his ladylove! Its interesting to see how he handles it. As usual, one of the pair is flashy, outspoken & confrontive, while the other is elegant, subdued & withdrawn. However, this is at least my 15th Krentz book and the formula still works for me. Go read it.

After a bit of a rocky start, I really enjoyed reading this book. I love a book with snappy, witty dialogue and Lady's Choice doesn't disappoint. I also felt that Julianna and Travis made a good couple that I could see staying together for the rest of their lives (always a good quality in a romance!). There were a couple of problems with this book that some people might find hard to swallow. One problem was the moral ambiguity. The hero starts off carrying out revenge and even though he gets over his anger neither he nor Julianna ever admit that what he did was morally wrong. Even worse are Julianna's family. What they did was absolutely immoral (it makes me mad to even think about it) yet they never even admit they did anything wrong and never try to make ammends. How are we suppose to feel anything but disdain for them? I especially disliked Julianna's weak cousin who I think we are actually meant to like. Another thing about this book that may bother readers is the personality of the heroine. I almost stopped reading the book after the fist couple of chapters because Julianna was so abrasive. It definitely took several chapters before I could get over her almost psychotic behavior at the beginning. But I did eventually warm up to her and I must admit, I have always loved a strong heroine who has absolute faith in her mate. All in all I think the strong points of this book far outweigh the negatives and I highly recommend Lady's Choice (good title BTW).

I liked this book because it was well written, well organizaed, and customary of the author tremendously funny. Jayne Ann Kretnz has a knack for writing contemporary. She also does a wonderful job of making her plot comical and comprehensible at the same time. She set up the novel with perfect sinchronization, in my opinion. Everything seemed related and in perfect accodance to time perionds, tenses, etc. She is the best. Krentz has an uncanny sense of humor that makes her signature evident on the novels she has written. I loved the novel as much as I love the author's voice and style. #1 Romance Novelist for me.

I'm so disappointed with Ms Krentz's new books in all her incarnations, it is a relief to pick this reissue and reaffirm myself that, when she does write well, Ms Krentz can make two characters pick their nose and still be funny and exciting.

This one has magnificent repartees and passion (no watered-down love scenes here, it's still the 1980s). Exciting business politics just like the days of "Hidden Talents", "Wildest Hearts" and others. A magnificent hero and a spunky heroine. Now if only Ms Krentz can recapture the glory of her past works!

This is the least favorite of Jayne Ann Krantz novels. First, The heroine is pushy and bossy. She makes excuses for the rotten way her family cheated and defrauds Travis. What women proposes marriage the first time she sleeps with a guy. Move over Fantasyworld. Travis even though you feel some sympathy for him he is so much a pushover you want to scream. It's hard to like a novel when you don't like the characters. Wait for the next one.

This is a bright and breezy book, the sort that Krentz excels at. Juliana is a wonderfully memorable heroine, a shade under 6 foot, a shade too overpowering, collecting marriage proposals but never getting married as the men start to realize how powerful her personality is and run away. But Travis isn't running. He hunted her out initially because she belonged to the family that wronged him. The revenge plot winds its way through the book but isn't integral to the romance. Juliana dismisses all his plotting with a swipe at how could he have thought himself in love with her paler, quieter cousin in any case. I liked her, she feels like a quintessentially 80's woman, and I'm glad Travis could keep up. This book predates Starbucks, but Juliana and Charisma coffee feel prescient to me. This is a reread and a keeper for me.

Lady's Choice by Jayne Ann Krentz has one of the bossiest and craziest heroines that I've read in a romantic book. The heroine has just slept with the hero for the first time, and the next morning she is telling him how they are going to get married. What? And the hero is not running for his life! This book just wasn't for me. And I love Jayne Ann Krentz, but this one jumped the shark. I wanted to quit reading it several times just because the heroine was so pushy and unlikeable. But the hero was great though. He wanted revenge against the heroine for the way that her family treated him. If it hadn't been for the hero, I would have put this book in my yard sale pile unread.

Wow! Although the ratings are all over on this book I'm shocked to see how most of the reviewers gave it a 5 star. Although I read 1-2 romance books every week this was my first JAK book & although her style of writing wasn't bad I just didn't care for the book at all. As other readers have stated Juliana was just downright unlikable. In my opinion she seemed to have some mental issues Travis wasn't that much better.

I thought it was ridiculous how fast these 2 (or rather Juliana) decided they would wed one another. They knew each other for a few weeks & didn't know a thing about each other or the others past or their family or their wants. To me it seemed like a customer going into a bank & having the same teller 2 or 3 times & they decide to have sex & right after discuss marriage. Even though the teller knew from the first time he walked into the bank that she'd marry him. Come on now.

I'm sorry I can't recommend this book & it'll be hard for me to try another JAK book after this one.