Customer Reviews

A Wild Affair: A Novel

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I am a huge fan of Gemma Townley and have read everything she has written. A Wild Affair is her newest book and it follows on the heels of The Importance of Being Married. Like old friends, we find all our favorites back again - including Max, Jessica and Helen and a few new players to add spice to the storyline.

I really liked the fact that Townley chose to write this book as a sequel - as we get to dive back into these people's lives and find out what happens to them. At the close of The Importance of Being Married, the horrid Max Anthony sold his share of the business to the adorable Max and Jessica and Max found that they were in love with each other. As A Wild Affair opens, we come to find out that Max and Jess are getting married and that Jess has managed to snag a huge account nicknamed "Project Handbag". But, as we will soon come to discover, a misunderstanding, which will bring with it a surprise twist in the storyline, early on in the book ,will completely spiral out of control and will seriously affect both Jess' professional life and her personal life.

As I mentioned, I love Gemma Townley and always enjoy reading her chick lit as Townley has a way of weaving a story that makes me feel as though the book is always too short. I also like that her characters are always interesting and that there are twists and turns at every opportunity.

Having said that, I found myself having very mixed feelings about A Wild Affair.
On the one hand, I thought the storyline was interesting. There were a lot of fun and devious little turns sprinkled all over that made reading this book quite an adventure. Especially intriguing is the twist that is presented to us about 1/3 into the book - that will precipitate a lot of touching scenes.

As always, Townley's writing is wonderful and flowly. Townley uses every day dialogue and does not shy away from writing some dishy dialogue and it all works extremely well together.

Unfortunately, what bugged me throughout the storyline is how the main character Jess is written and portrayed. She comes across as incredibly whiny and immature for most of the storyline and she appears to be dazed and confused for most of the storyline. There are many instances in which I felt like screaming at her "just find a backbone or would you please get with it". It was sooooo irritating to see just how easily manipulated she was. Everytime she had the nerve to think or feel something, she was immediately shut down by one character or the other.

I also kept wondering what it was that Jess actually did at her job? Although many of the scenes featured Jess at work, it was never particularly clear what she did, or if she did, indeed actually do any work. This would be okay if the book was not focused on her professional life, but a good chunk of this book is based on that very fact. It seemed to me as though her assistant Caroline did more work than Jess ever did.

Also, unlike Townley's other books, there was very little humour in this one and I have to say, I miss that.

Still, this was a fun read and I was sorry when it was over. I am hoping that Townley chooses to continue this series as I have come to find myself attached to these characters and I want to know more about their lives. But please, in the next one - give us back the old Jess from the first book.

Taking off where "The Importance of Being Married " left us , Jessica's
fake wedding to Anthony Milton is called off when she discovers that she
is actually in love with Max Wainwright. In A Wild Affair, Jessica is in
the stages of preparing her wedding to Max when she starts to get cold
feet after Max has been having secret meetings, cancelling dates,
depositing money into an account for another woman. The last straw for
Jessica is when after a cell phone switch, Max's phone rings and Jessica
answers it and it turns out to be the "other woman". Is this marriage
going to end before it's actually began and when Jessica realises that
things are definitely not what they seem , with the help of her friends
Helen, Giles, Ivana and Sean ,can Jessica save her marriage to Max without
causing a hole to deep to climb out of ?. A fun story that is your usual
chick lit and lends us the moral "that everything is not what it seems,
and sometimes what you see on the surface is nowhere near the truth".

I truly enjoyed this book. I like the characters. The book is well written and the characters are well defined.

Jessica Wild and Max Wainwright are engaged. Currently the Milton Advertising pair is working together on a top secret bank merger as well as their personal merger as both look forward to exchanging their vows. However, Jessica notices that Max seems distant lately, but assumes he is a bit nervous about the marriage and somewhat distracted about the bank job.

Jessica picks up Max's phone only to hear a sexy voice on the end. Frightened he may be stepping out on her, she tracks the voice only to find Max hugging a sexy woman. She leaves hysterical and getting drunk. The next morning she awakens in the bed of Max's rival Hugh Barter. Vino veritas costs Max his lucrative deal and Jessica her Max; she and her BFFs try to learn just who the woman is.

The sequel to THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING MARRIED is an engaging contemporary tale starring an insecure protagonist who never gives Max a chance to explain until she nukes their relationship. The support cast enhances the somewhat thin plot by either adding humor, trouble, or both. Although the ending seems too simple, Gemma Townley provides a fun tale of a major detour on the way to the aisle.

Harriet Klausner