Wednesday

Love in the Afternoon by Lisa Kleypas


Bye bye Hathaway family

http://www.lisakleypas.com/
Another story about the interesting Hathaway family and if I'm not mistaken there aren't anymore Hathaways, so this may be the last.

While Love in the Afternoon is good, it is probably the weakest of the Hathaway series; it has a rushed feel about it.

This story is about the animal whisperer, Beatrix, and Christopher Phelan, a neighbor. The concept is interesting, a sort of Cyrano de Bergerac story without the nose. Beatrix writes letters to Christopher, signs someone else's name and Christopher falls in love with the person responsible for writing the letters.

While I did enjoy the story, every time it could have turned into a really powerful love story, it just dwindled away. The letter writing truth comes out, he gets mad, he gets engaged to the fake signee, he confronts Beatrix, she apologizes, he forgives her, he breaks his engagement, she gets mad, she runs off. Christopher and Beatrix get married, they have sex, they don't sleep together, an ex-comrade shows up, he tries to kill Christopher, he doesn't, he is saved by Christopher and Beatrix. These kind of ho-hum things happen throughout the book, but they shouldn't be ho-hum... there is just no spark!

So, even though it was a satisfactory read, it was just that: satisfactory. This was not one of Ms. Kleypas' outstanding books. I'm wondering if this means we've found another author who has too many irons in the fire? Is it possible to write more than one book a year AND still keep the momentum going?

Time/Place: Victorian England
Rating:
Sensuality Rating: Hot

1 comment:

Melissa said...

Loved it! I thought the love letters were so sweet and touching. The story with Albert was fun. I know the dog stole the show. Plus Christopher is such a damaged character. I did hate the end with the returning murderous comrade. I kept thinking, really? I'm curious if it was a set up for a future book.