All Dressed Up

All Dressed Up
by Lucy Hepburn
Published by Diversion Books
331 pages
Genre: chick lit; romance
Thanks to NetGalley for the preview
3.5 / 5

We all know someone, whether it’s a sibling or a parent or a friend, who thinks the world revolves around them. That they are the center of the universe. Aren’t we so lucky that we get to spend time with them? Aren’t we? Sure we are.

For Molly Wright, that center is her older sister Caitlin, who is in Italy preparing to marry her somewhat older, far wealthier, and extremely famous fiance. Despite Molly being an aspiring fashion designer, her sister hired a Parisian haute couture genius to do the job. Molly’s dream is to live in Paris and design clothes, but her initial visit to the city proves to be less than fulfilling: she gets dumped by her boyfriend of five years, a man she thought was going to propose.

When Caitlin calls in a fit of hysteria over her dress not having been shipped to Italy, Molly volunteers to pick it up and take it herself. She and Pascal, the designer’s assistant, hop on a plane and head to Venice.

Alas, things go horribly awry.

But the good news is that Simon, the hot Englishman sitting next to Molly on the plane? He might make all of this awfulness go down a whoooole lot better.

This is a book that alternates between slapstick silliness and dramatic sadness. In the midst of all of that overwrought emotionalism, though, are some sweet moments. Molly and her mother share a heartfelt talk in the back of a car, allowing Molly to say things she should have said years before. Her mother, too. The quiet moments between Molly and Simon are lovely, as are those between Molly and Pascal. There is a fantastic auction scene that tells us more about the characters than any of the frivolous scenes.

The romance is sweet. Molly and Simon are adorable, and Simon helps Molly see the difference between someone who appears to be good and someone who truly is. He and the ex-boyfriend are in the same line of work, but whereas Reggie makes movies based on fictional stories, Simon makes documentaries. He’s real. And Molly needs real. If it all wraps up a little too neatly, then so be it. This isn’t a book that wants to leave you with a cliffhanger. It wants to leave you happy and warm and fluffy and all that sort of stuff.

Fortunately, the scenes that matter and that affect us most are able to overpower the scenes that drive us nuts.

The Infatuations

The Infatuations
by Javier Marías
Published by Knopf
352 pages
Genre: literature, mystery
Thanks to edelweiss for the preview.
3.5 / 5

Do you people watch? I love to, which perhaps speaks to some sort of voyeuristic trait. But I do. I like to watch people and imagine what their lives are like.

So does María Dolz, who frequents the same cafe for breakfast every morning. She becomes enthralled with a couple she sees there regularly, nicknaming them The Perfect Couple. When the husband is brutally murdered, María feels for his widow, and even a bit for herself. She will miss seeing The Perfect Couple.

One day when the widow appears at the cafe, María approaches her to offer her condolences. She is invited to the widow’s home and there meets two men, including the attractive Javier. When she bumps into him later, they begin to see each other. María falls in love, even as she suspects that Javier loves the widow Luisa. She becomes convinced that he is waiting for Luisa’s grief to pass and views María as nothing more than a dalliance. She contents herself with this, though, happy to have what time she can with him.

When María happens to overhear a conversation relating to Luisa’s husband’s death, she begins to wonder if it was as accidental as it appeared.

There is a bit of a mystery here – who killed Luisa’s husband and why – but the greater story is that of María. She debases herself in a way by allowing herself to have sex with Javier even though she believes he is in love with Luisa. She behaves with him the way she believes he behaves with Luisa: quietly adoring, devoted, and hopefully indispensable.

María works for a publisher, and as a woman immersed in books, she crafts a lot of dialogue in her head. Pages of this book are devoted to discussions María imagines people having, just as she imagines Javier’s love for Luisa. When she overhears the conversation that appears to imply that Luisa’s husband was murdered on purpose, is her interpretation correct, or is this something else she imagines? Javier directs her to a Balzac book that he wants her to read, and that begins to color María’s perceptions as well. She seems like someone who categorically cannot think for herself. She’s too busy thinking like a character in a book.

But what if all of those things she imagines are true? How then would we adjust our opinion of her?

This book unfolds really, REALLY slowly. There are the imagined conversations and imagined confrontations. María lives in her head quite a bit, and since she’s the one telling us this story, she forces us to live there too. There were times I wanted to shout, “Hurry up, already!”

The other issue is that María is not all that likable. She thinks so little of herself that she continues her sexual relationship with Javier even though she thinks he loves another and even though he contacts her only when it suits him. She allows him to direct their relationship completely. When she later contemplates marriage, she again diminishes herself, noting that she is in her thirties and opportunities might be running out. María’s life is all about settling, whether for what she thinks she deserves or for what she imagines to be best for herself.

You need a lot of patience to read this book, and for the most part, it’s worth it. The ending goes out with a íquiet whimper rather than something more vociferous, which, while frustrating, suits Mara and stays true to who she is.

The question becomes whether María grows in the book. Does she? Or does she stay stagnant? If she doesn’t, why not? Why does it seem that the events we read about leave her utterly unchanged? It is that fine point that makes me rate this book as average. I can accept the slow pacing and the ambivalent ending. But María needs to change. She needs to be more dynamic.

Winter Chill

Winter Chill
by Joanne Fluke
Published by Kensington
352 pages
Genre: mystery
Thanks to NetGalley for the preview
5 / 5

When you read as much smut as I do (and bless you, Tiffany Reisz, Sylvia Day, Jessica Hawkins, and others for the services you provide), you occasionally need a bit of a palate cleanser, which for me comes in the form of mysteries. I love a good mystery, even when they make me feel dumb for not anticipating whodunit (and I’m looking at YOU, Dangerous Girls). Let me just say that this book rattled my chains a whole, whooooole lot.

When Dan takes his young daughter on a routine snow mobile ride, neither he nor his wife Marian anticipate anything other than Dan and Laura returning home, full of raucous stories about the fun they had. So when the police show up in Marian’s driveway, she knows something horrific has occurred. Horrific, indeed: Laura is dead and Dan is paralyzed.

Marian and Dan survive their grief in different ways, and while Dan knows that his paralysis is a burden, he nonetheless worries about Marian. She will sit in Laura’s room and weep. Marian also gets liquored up at a party and does something stupid, and while Dan is angry with her, he knows that the snow mobile accident renders him somewhat mute when it comes to judgment. He tries to assuage Marian’s grief as best he can, but he soon discovers that his efforts are a terrible idea.

Meanwhile, the residents in their small Minnesota town appear besieged: more children start to die, more neighbors. Was that snow mobile accident truly an accident, or is there a serial killer in their midst?

Dan thinks he knows who the killer is, but is he right? Or do he and Marian have to understand that just because they want something to be true does not mean that it actually is?

Let me just tell you that the ending will give you chills. And not just because it occurs in the midst of a Minnesota winter. Chills, people. CHILLS.

Joanne Fluke crafts an excellent mystery. In fact, this is as much a character study as a mystery, which is one of Fluke’s strengths as a writer. She lets her story unfold slowly and carefully, and if it feels too slow at the start, perhaps it’s because we readers need to understand the numbing grief of Dan and Marian. We get to know their friends and coworkers, and we feel the immeasurable sadness that envelops them as they attempt to resume their lives after Laura’s death. As the body count rises, the pacing amps up in intensity, and we feel their terror, especially Dan’s when he believes he knows who’s behind the deaths.

An excellent mystery.

E for England

E for England
by Elisabeth Rose
Published by Escape – Harlequin Australia
231 pages
Genre: chick lit
Thanks to NetGalley for the preview
3.5 / 5

Annie’s husband left her and their two young children nearly a year ago, leaving behind only a note saying he needed to find himself. He has sent a few postcards, but no money, relegating Annie to moving in with a frisky coworker. She had to give up her plans for an MBA as she struggles to provide for her children.

Yes, life looks a bit challenging for her. The last thing she has any interest in is dating, so of course she meets Hugh, a handsome doctor living in the same apartment building. The two are attracted to each other, but Hugh refuses to have children and Annie refuses to make hers anything less than all of her top ten priorities.

The challenge for these two is to overcome their resistance. Hugh has his reasons for not wanting children, even as we – and Annie – can see that he’s mistaken. Annie, meanwhile, convinces herself that dating Hugh would be a huge mistake. She needs to focus on her children, not a man, and besides. He doesn’t want kids, and she has two.

Then there is the ex-husband, who isn’t quite an ex-husband just yet. What if he were to show back up in their lives? And where on earth is he?

This is a cute romance, but one tinged with sadness and melancholy. Hugh is well acquainted with love and loss, with life and death, both personally and professionally. We understand why he’s reluctant to be a father, both because of what he experienced in the past and because he encounters death and blame frequently in his job. He needs an orderly, quiet life, not one disturbed by rambunctious children.

Annie’s marriage is also cause for a twinges of sadness. We do learn why her husband left, which makes us feel for her and her children (and even the husband) ever stronger. As much as we want Annie happy, and as much as we think she could be with Hugh, we know that happiness for her will be hard fought. Does she even have time for such a fight?

This story is presented fairly realistically, and the characters are people we relate to, largely because they know, as well as we do, that nothing magically happens in life. Sometimes the pacing feels off, though, and the ending seems a bit too neat considering the messiness that preceded it.

Lovestruck in London

Lovestruck in London
by Rachel Schurig
Published by Amazon Digital
Genre: chick lit, YA
Thanks to NetGalley for the preview
3 / 5

A common fantasy for young girls (or .. ahem … slightly older girls) is commoner-girl-meets-rich-and-successful-man. We saw it in Pride and Prejudice when two middle class Bennet sisters married wealthy men. Then there is Kate Middleton, who either did us a favor or ruined us forever when she married Prince William. See? She proved that it can work!!

In this play on the fantasy, we have middle class Lizzie (named after the Darcy marrying Miss Bennet), a Detroit-born middle class daughter of Mexican immigrants who heads to London for a graduate degree in literature. Only a few nights into her nine month-trip pass before she meets Thomas Harper, a co-star in a wildly successful Twilight-type movie franchise. Thomas is taken with Lizzie, in part because she has no idea who he really is. He looks familiar, but she isn’t a fan of his popular movies. She comes to him with no preconceived notions of what he’s like or what she thinks he’s like.

The two begin a courtship, and the nine month gestational period is probably not accidental. Only after the nine months, the love their birthed will either be abandoned (when Lizzie returns to Detroit) or nurtured. Of course, this relationship does not come easily to either of them. Lizzie feels beholden to her parents and five older siblings, and staying in London to date an actor is not on her family’s list of Things to Do. For Thomas, acclimating Lizzie into his life requires patience, to say the least.

Will true love conquer all? Will Lizzie and Thomas find a way to stay together?

You probably already know the answer to that, but the book is fun to read anyway. If it seems a little familiar to those of us who read Tina Reber’s Love Unscripted and Love Unrehearsed, then so be it. The two do share some similarities. Fortunately, Thomas and Lizzie are entirely likable and relatable. And lucky. Not many of us experience a fast-paced love affair like these two do, and their problems seem almost forced and inconsequential. We get it. Lizzie feels guilty over the London schooling and for not having the same ambitions for herself as her family does. But at the same time, she’s a reader. She knows that life is unpredictable and that love is worth pursuing. Thomas is a good guy, but Lizzie occasionally gets frustrating.

What becomes more frustration, though, is a lack of tension. Yes, there is Lizzie’s obligation to her family, but it almost feels forced. One of her siblings is so mean and derisive that she appears to be a caricature of an evil stepsister.

The good news is that despite her occasional “what in the world is she thinking?” moments, Lizzie is darn adorable. You become invested in her and her story, and she will make you enjoy this book, even if it is devoid of any mystery as to its outcome.