Author: Rebekahrox

The More Love Grows

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D-I-V-O-R-C-E

Rachel Boston has a particular acting style. Animated? Energetic? Bright-eyed and bushy tailed? Hard to describe in one word. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

My problem with this one was the short shrift the dissolution of a 20-year marriage with a child is given. The husband just leaves with no warning or discussion. And it’s not like there were serious issues in the marriage. No cheating or emotional/physical abuse, addiction issues, mental health issues, etc. And no counseling. Even though her new man was a better guy than old husband, and she was better off without old husband, it bothered me. His lack of effort at the beginning, and her lack of effort at the end when he came crawling back.

One thing I loved about this one was when Rachel Boston’s friends were on the fence about their support for her when he took off, she just dropped them. “You are not my friends.” Good for her.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

The Lantern’s Dance

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By Laurie R. King

I usually read Laurie R. King’s Russell/Holmes mysteries in book form so I can look for clues and check for understanding as I read. And I collect, and therefore buy, her books in Hardback because they, or at least the dust jackets, are so beautiful. I read this one on Audible because I had a credit I kinda needed to use. Nevertheless, I enjoyed listening to this 18th in the series. Forgetting the well-done audible performance, the book itself was extraordinary. To me it was right up there with her first three: The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, A Monstrous Regiment of Women, A Letter to Mary, and her 14th book, The Murder of Mary Russell. King peoples many of her novels with real-life historical personages who intermingle with fictional icons which adds so much to their appeal. In the course of the series, we meet people such as Lord Peter Wimsey, Kimbal O’Hara (Rudyard Kipling’s Kim) Dashiell Hammett, Cole Porter, Elsa Maxwell, T.E. Lawrence, and J.R.R. Tolkien. But like The Murder of Mary Russell, one of the most compelling aspects of this book is the exploration of the backstories of Arthur Conan Doyle’s creations by way of Laurie R. King by way of Mary Russell’s journals. In King’s books, Sherlock is not a fictional character created by Doyle but a real person whom his friend Watson (who is only mentioned in passing a time or two and whom Mary calls “Uncle John”) has based a series of famous detective stories. The resulting fame is sometimes very much an irritation and inconvenience to the real detective. The books begin after Holmes has “retired” to the country and meets 15-year-old Mary Russell, who gives him a new lease on life. He takes her on as an apprentice and later marries her. Or she marries him, maybe I should say.

In The Murder of Mary Russell King delved into Mrs. Hudson’s eye-popping history. In this one, the curtain is flung open on Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes’ family background and a past childhood tragedy. Of course, this tale of Holmes’s past is not based on ACD canon. All we know from the creator of Sherlock Holmes is that Sherlock’s grandmother was the sister of non-fictional French Artist, Horace Vernet. From that little nugget, King weaves a fantastical yet meticulously researched tale that is grounded firmly in Sherlockiana lore and respected speculative theories concerning the great detective. I won’t go into detail, but I will just say that Laurie takes it to a whole new level. I was blown away by the great reveal at the end which I suspect that I would have suspected had I been able to carefully read the book rather than listen to it. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Having just arrived home from Transylvania, Holmes and Russell are looking forward to a quiet visit with Holmes’ son, the artist, Damian Adler, and his little family. But it is not to be. The Adler home was broken into by a machete-wielding intruder shortly after some mysterious trunks and crates had arrived for Damien. Now the Adler family has gone missing. Mary, hobbled by a broken ankle is left to her own devices while Sherlock tracks down his son. Of course, Damian’s mysterious boxes are not safe from Mary’s curiosity. What she discovers in the trunks keeps her well-occupied in decoding and translating the fascinating journals of a girl named Lakshmi. We are introduced to her as a child as she is transplanted from France to India. The journals end with her settled in England after fleeing India under great danger. But what does she have to do with the Vernets, Sherlock Holmes, or Damian Adler? Or is the connection with his mother Irene?

The answer is both intriguing, moving, and even amusing. I had a lump in my throat and at the last, was chuckling. And I can’t wait for King’s next entry in the series. I hope and trust the plot will pick up where this one leaves off and build on the last sentence: Well,I thought, This is certainly going to make for an interesting conversation when next we see Mycroft.”

Rating: 5 out of 5.


Simply the Best

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by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

The Python stopped by the table. “Let’s do a roundup here. Your top client is charged with murder, his mother is crawling on the floor doing cleanup, his sister has been working her ass off in your kitchen when she should have been a guest, and topping it all off, Tyler Capello—a player you have not signed—shows up at your party with his slimy ex-agent who sets your place on fire. Is that about right?” He punched out the words. “Am I missing anything?” The River was never at a loss for words. Until now.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips is an automatic buy for me both for loyalty’s sake and because even her lesser books are always enjoyable on the whole. There are always hours of entertainment to be had. Nevertheless, I opened this book with a bit of trepidation. She has not been as consistent lately. Also I’m a lot pickier about chick lit than I used to be. I’m much less about the romance and the usual tropes these days. But SEP always delivers effortless humor, and is such an engaging writer, that she drew me right in like the premier Rom-Com writer she is. I was happily reading along thinking how similar this was to one of her best books, Match Me if You Can, when I realized that I really didn’t like the main character, Rory. Not a good thing. She was a brat. And to make it worse, SEP seemed to think that just because Rory is  self-aware and acknowledges her brattiness to herself, it somehow excuses her behavior and makes her more likable. Not to me. She does this throughout the book, until she finally actually ratchets down her nonsense and starts to get it together.

Rory has always felt “less than” thanks to her father and stepmother who always put her down and compared her to their perfect son, her half-brother, Clint. He is now a star football player playing for the Chicago Stars and a client of Brett, a sports agent who works for Heath Champion “The Python”, the hero of the aforementioned Match Me if You Can. Clint is infatuated with a beautiful shallow gold digger and is on the outs with both Rory and Brett because they tried to tell him the truth about her. Early in the book (slight spoiler), Ashley is murdered and Clint disappears. This is ample excuse to throw the two leads together to solve the murder, find Clint, and needless to say, fall in lust, then love, as is usual in this genre. While driving together to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I was irritated by Rory and Brett’s totally gratuitous encounter with some survivalist conspiracy theory MAGA types. Although played for laughs, it wasn’t that funny and served no purpose but to give the author the excuse to vent her rage against these people and to espouse her views on true patriotism. Even though I largely agree with her, I just wanted to tell her to settle down. One sided portrayals do more harm than good. I waited in vain for some balance. She included a similar group in an earlier book, but they were well-rounded and had some relevance to the plot.

I didn’t enjoy the banter that SEP is so good at as much as I usually do because most of it was based on Rory’s unnecessarily rude comments and it made me dislike her even more. About halfway through, Clint is found and, Whoops! Strike three. I despised him even more than Rory. I hope SEP does not use Clint as the hero of her next Chicago Stars book because, like his sister Rory, he was a brat.* In his case, he was a petulant spoiled whiny brat. It was disappointing because he was described by all and sundry in the highest possible terms as honest, moral, talented and smart. Wish we had seen that side of him much sooner than we did. As it was, it was too little too late.

Thank Goodness it is about at this time that Rory has an epiphany and starts to behave in a more mature manner.

Sitting here surrounded by gravestones, she saw the truth. She didn’t have the guts to put herself on the line. Big dreams without follow-through was her mode, and the reason was blindingly clear. As long as she didn’t really try, she didn’t have to risk failing.

Throughout most of the book, she refuses to accept any financial help from all of the rich people in her life to pull herself out of her debt and start realizing her dream of making chocolate for a living. She finally realizes that instead of accepting charity, she can accept money as an investment in her business. That bright idea took a lot longer than it should have considering the desperate straits in which she had found herself. We know what a genius she is at her craft thanks to all of the chocolate porn. Unfortunately, about the time Rory and Clint start to get less irritating, our hero, Brett, who I hadn’t had any problems with, turns into a stalker. When Rory confronts him about his feelings towards her, he blows it and won’t admit that he loves her. (Possibly because he doesn’t know he’s in love with her, which is another Chick-Lit trope I am so tired of). Rory rightly tells him to get lost. And he. Will. Not. Leave. Her. Alone.

In the middle of all this Rory’s stepmother appears on the scene and, as I suspected, she is not the evil witch that Rory had made her out to be. I liked her romance with an on-the-spectrum nerdy guy although it was still very trope-y. What about Ashley’s real killer? You may well ask. I won’t say who it was but it was extremely lame. Probably #1 on the list of Things Not to Do in a murder mystery.

All in all, despite SEP’s writing talent and humor, I felt like her heart wasn’t really in this one. It had too much in common with Match Me if You Can (quirky feisty girl meets Master of the Universe) With some plot things thrown in and some subtracted to make it just different enough. But Susan Elizabeth Phillips is still on my automatic buy list. Because the good thing about inconsistency is that if an author’s latest book is a disappointment, that means that maybe her next one will be great. But please, Elizabeth, can we just have a heroine with a normal profession next time? How about a teacher or an accountant instead of a matchmaker, opera singer, puppeteer, portrait painter, Genius Physics Professor, Televangelist’s widow, former child star (twice), First Lady of the United States, etc. etc.?

*Unfortunately this is exactly what SEP did. I will still read it, but will be getting this from the library. First time I haven’t been first in line to purchase for 25 years.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Sense and Sensibility

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Very Respectable Effort

Since I was unavoidably delayed in watching this 4th and last of the Jane Austen-based Loveuary Hallmarks, I couldn’t help but read some of the reviews and comments about it on the usual social media sites. This was not a reworking, or a homage, or modernization, or a 20th-century woman thrust back into the time of the book, but an actual straight up serious treatment of the book. Granted it featured not an all-black cast, but a mostly-black cast. In fact, the only main characters who were not black were Eleanor and Maryanne’s weak and greedy half-brother John Dashwood, his brother-in-law, nice Edward Ferrars Elinor Dashwood’s love interest, and generous Sir John Middleton. Except for the mostly ridiculous user reviews on IMDb (don’t get me started) the movie was almost unreservedly enjoyed by almost all. Many admired how the production managed to be so faithful to the book despite the short running time of 8o-odd  minutes. The production values, acting, sets, and costumes were also highly regarded. I certainly concur! I am not going to regurgitate the plot of Sense and Sensibility because if you haven’t read it or seen one of the many adaptations, including the Oscar-winning movie version starring…well, everyone, shame on you. Kidding, but I highly recommend changing that state of affairs. If indeed you haven’t seen it, SPOILERS AHEAD.

Of course, there were some aspects of the plot that were cut, consolidated, or condensed, but this did not seem to negatively impact the main thrust of the story in my opinion. For example, Mrs. Jennings’ daughter, Mrs. Palmer, is missing in action, as is her sister Lady Middleton, John Middleton’s wife. No loss at all concerning the latter most will agree. Without the comedically mismatched Palmers though, when Marianne has her breakdown they stop over at their former estate, Norland, instead of the Palmer estate on the way back home to their cottage. It is there that Maryanne almost dies of pneumonia.  That stop over at their former home is at half-brother John’s invitation, somewhat redeeming his character. Plus he said sorry. I kind of liked that, TBH, but I am not a purist and I like redemption. Essentially all of the important plot points and characters were there and the essential dynamics were not compromised. Even Eliza, Colonel Brandon’s unhappy and victimized ward makes an appearance at the wedding uniting Eleanor and Edward. And in typical Hallmark fashion, she is happy and smiling. I liked that little touch as well.

I was afraid I would just be bored by this treatment as I know the story so well, but that was not the case either. The mixed-race cast mostly did a very credible job of keeping my interest with special kudos to Dan Jeannotte who played Edward and Deborah Ayorinde who played Eleanor. Carlyss Peer was a very satisfactory villainess and Martina Laird was funny as Mrs. Jennings.  Unfortunately, the racial aspect of the casting could have lent a more interesting dynamic than it did. When horrible Fanny Dashwood discourages her sister-in-law from hoping for a match between Elinor and her brother Edward by saying Edward must wed “the right kind of woman,” Mrs. Dashwood replies with dignity “I understand you perfectly.” This conversation is right out of the book but could have been given a social nuance that would have added significance and drama had Fanny been played by a white actress.  Actually, I thought Carlyss Peer was white at first and was impressed by the meaning it subtly gave that conversation. I only found out later that she is black. Oh well. Along these same lines, I would have welcomed a white actor playing the scoundrel, Willoughby. His cold and distant reaction to meeting her at the London ball would have made Marianne’s heartbreak and humiliation all the more affecting and layered had this been the case. Marianne got too little development probably due to the understandable time constraint, but as a consequence her learning curve was too easy, and thus less affecting. While I am quibbling, I need to add that The Dashwood “cottage” that they were “reduced” to settle for was so huge and well-appointed that I had a hard time feeling bad for the displaced and struggling little family. It made Mrs. Dashwood’s complaints about how far they had fallen seem whiny and silly.

But all in all, kudos to Hallmark for attempting these tributes to Jane Austen and doing a more than credible job in the execution. As well done as this one was, I have to add “for a Hallmark.” I put this one in third place behind An American in Austen and Paging Mr. Darcy.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

A Taste of Love

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Keep the Fried Chicken but Go Back to the Chili con Queso Dip and the Sliders.

Although generally pleasant with a nice beach location in Dunedin Florida, this was just not up to snuff. All of the plot points were utterly predictable from the romance to her career decision to the fate of her parents’ restaurant. I won’t review the plot because you know it even if you haven’t seen this particular version. I will just say: Unfulfilled TV chef,  Parents’ selling their small town restaurant, Memories of Granny, Looming decision over taking $$$$ vs. Creative Dream, and hometown old boyfriend living his best life. Throw in a black best friend/agent, a token gay couple, a festival, a cooking contest, a mean-girl rival, kitchen shenanigans, cooking montages, and lots of misunderstandings due to miscommunications. I was suspicious of this movie when it premiered on a Monday instead of the usual Saturday. Sadly, my suspicions were confirmed.

I am not an Erin Cahill fan, though I can’t give you a good reason. No matter her role, I always feel kind of stabby at her at some point. She is very popular so it’s all on me. I did like the guy who played her farmer love interest though (yes, farmer not former, He’s a farmer and he wasn’t former well before the first hour.) The guy who played her father was the bad guy in the Karate Kid and I couldn’t get over that. “Yes, Sensei.” The plot centers around Taylor (Erin Cahill) being offered millions of dollars to take her popular cooking show to primetime, but she doesn’t like the show’s “Quick and Easy” theme because she wants to be a real chef and do her own thing. I mention this only because after lots of angst, she actually decides to take the money! I was very pleasantly surprised. Throughout all of the waffleing (pun intended), I was like “Take the generational money now, girl, you can be a great chef later!” With the fame and the dough (pun intended), the sky’s the limit! But get this. Her agent/best friend doesn’t send in the contracts! Contracts that would make her close to a million dollars on the deal herself! For no other reason than it “felt off” plus a mysterious phone call from the formerly benign farmer boyfriend behind Taylor’s back. Words fail at the utter gall of the agent and all of the red flags being waved by the boyfriend.

Well of course, no harm done, she ends up doing another cooking show filmed in the family restaurant that she now owns and being all creative with her food. Oh, and she won the cooking contest at the festival albeit with two horrible-sounding creations featuring fried chicken, blueberry syrup, waffles, ice cream, donuts with blue icing, bacon, and something that looked like, I swear, jalapeños.

Rating: 4 out of 10.

An American in Austen

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There’s No Place Like Home

Spoilers

Going by the premise, the previews, and that I just rewatched Lost in Austen, this didn’t go the way I expected. And because of that, it was so much better than I expected, even though my expectations were very high indeed. Harriet is a librarian, loves Jane Austen, and is also trying to write a novel but alas, like all authors in Hallmarks, she has writer’s block.  When her boyfriend of 3 years proposes very romantically in front of her friends she responds with a resounding “Maybe.” She feels bad for breaking his heart, but, as she tells her friends, she has always dreamed of a hero (like Mr. Darcy for example) riding up on a horse taking her in his arms, and carrying her off into the sunset. Not that Mr. Darcy would ever do such a thing, and as her friends point out, she has just described a kidnapping. Because Ethan is not exactly a romantic hero. In fact, he is kind of a dorky loser. She falls asleep in the cab on the way home, and wakes up in a carriage wondering “What’s that smell?”. She has been transported into Pride and Prejudice, her favorite novel. At first, she thinks it’s an elaborate gag and plays along as best she can, exclaiming over the authenticity of the sets. But inevitably she realizes (no power lines or planes) that she really is the Bennet’s old maid (she’s over 30, horrors) cousin visiting from America. Which explains her strange ways, speech, and attitudes.

We start revisiting Pride and Prejudice. Except with Harriet there, things go a little bit awry. And first on the agenda is the assembly in Meryton (“Oh, great, more corsets”). When Mr. Darcy insults Elizabeth like in the book, Harriet marches up to him and tells him off. Not in the book. Mr. Darcy’s attention is diverted from Elizabeth to Harriet and soon becomes smitten with the “strange creature.” Mr. Collins proposes to Mary instead of Charlotte and Mary accepts. Elizabeth falls for Mr. Wickham because all of Darcy’s attention is focused on Harriet. Harriet realizes she is “destroying Jane Austen!” and, using her knowledge of the book, is determined to get things back on track. But things keep getting worse. When Darcy proposes to her (one of the things he is attracted to is her “remarkably white teeth.”), it is her wake-up call. She realizes that she has only been in love with the idea of a Romantic Hero, not a real person, and it is Ethan that she truly loves and misses terribly. “This is the moment I’ve always dreamed of but now that it is for real, this is not the feeling I have always dreamed of.” When Elizabeth elopes with Wickham it is Darcy and Harriet to the rescue. Wickham is exposed as the cad he is, and to Harriet’s relief, Darcy and Elizabeth start falling in love in the carriage on the way back home to Longbourne. “Awwwh” Harriet sighs, and then gets out of the carriage to leave them alone.

This movie was a real charmer. All of the actors made the most of the script, but the fortuitously named Eliza Bennett as Harriet really was a star. Most of the humor, even laugh-out-loud moments, are due to her delivery, especially when she comes out with her modern irreverent asides under her breath on what is happening in front of her. Trying to talk Elizabeth out of walking to Netherfield to visit sick Jane “Okay, so I can’t rewrite the walking part,” she sighs. “I adore you!” proclaims  Darcy. “Do you though?”, she responds quizzically. When Elizabeth elopes,  “Don’t worry, I got this!”

I was amazed at just how much of Pride and Prejudice they were able to get into 84 minutes. Crazy how much plot you can fit in without the usual time-sucking tentpole scenes and montages. But what makes this a 10-star Hallmark rather than a 9 or 9 1/2 are the thoughtful and serious moments. When Harriet tries to talk Mary out of marrying “that weirdo” Mr. Collins, Mary reminds her that though she doesn’t love him, she doesn’t have the luxury of a choice. But don’t worry, this is one of the things that Harriet “fixes”, though it certainly doesn’t endear her to the Bennets. In a touching tête-à-tête with Mrs. Bennet, she explains to Harriet that of course she loves her daughters and wants them to be happy. But safety and security come before love. And safety and security are inextricably intertwined with love. I loved that Harriet learns the difference between romance and real love. When Harriet gets back to her real life, the reunion with Ethan is romantic and touching because it is based on a firm foundation. One of the more romantic scenes I remember in a Hallmark, actually. Ethan really steps up to the plate. We skip forward in time, and Harriet is in a bookstore promoting her completed novel. Guess what the title is.

Rating: 10 out of 10.

Strange Bedpersons

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By Jennifer Crusie

Jennifer Crusie is always a reliable purveyor of fun and funny contemporary romances. Her interesting and likable characters, effortless humor, and the ever popular “witty banter” cast most of her contemporaries and successors in the shade. Her heroines never get stuck in their own heads to avoid moving forward solely as an author’s device to create conflict. To my memory, I’ve never silently screamed in frustration at the stubborn stupidity of a Jennifer Crusie character. This book is an early one from 1994 and was originally published by Harlequin as one of their Temptation series of romances.

Tess is a liberal-minded do-gooder who was raised in a hippie commune. She doesn’t care about social status or money. She shops at thrift stores and is a teacher of needy children. When the book opens she has just broken up with Nick who is her opposite in every way. He is a conservative lawyer in an elite if stodgy “old money” firm whose #1 goal in life is to make partner. Tess has just lost her teaching job because the school just lost its funding. The key to Nick realizing his ambition is to land the account of a famous conservative author at an exclusive weekend house party. In order to project stability and the traditional values that are so prized by his firm, he invites Tess to pose as his fiance. Why the opinionated free spirit Tess of all people? Because she actually reads books and despite their differences he really loves her. She feels the same and conveniently is motivated to behave and keep her opinions to herself because a potential new employer will also be in attendance. She figures she can teach the rich kids for a much higher salary and better hours and then volunteer at the foundation which was forced to let her go. But can she restrain her propensity to speak her mind and be the demure, conventional, and proper fiance?

In the course of the book, both Tess and Nick learn to respect each other’s values with some bumps along the way. Their second chance romance is satisfying if predictable. A secondary romance between her best friend Gina, an Italian professional dancer and Nick’s best friend Park, the scion of the family firm that Nick works for provides most of the suspense and surprises. Park is somewhat of a dim-bulb and playboy who is firmly under the thumb of his snobby and judgemental parents. They definitely would not approve of high school dropout Gina, if Park had the guts to introduce her, that is.  Into the mix there is a little mystery involving Tess’s upbringing in the commune, the far-right author, and how he got his filthy hands on  a series of fairy tales that were written for Tess one summer by a wise visitor who became somewhat of a mentor and father-figure to the young girl. There was a plot twist I didn’t see coming and a very funny and climactic family dinner that ultimately leads to comeuppances, rewards, happy endings, and justice for all.

It’s a 3 1/2 star unpretentious frothy read. But I bumped it up to 4 stars for the sake of one character: Nick’s personal assistant, the cool, collected, and ultra-competent Christine. She is Nick’s secret weapon who knows all, sees all, and sometimes deigns to save the day.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

The Invisible Chimes (Judy Bolton #3)

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By Margaret Sutton

Judy’s hands trembled and her gray eyes were dark with apprehension as she lifted the loose floorboards and looked.
“Good Heavens!”
The two boards fell back across the open space with a crash as Judy uttered this startled exclamation. She simply sat back on her heels and refused to think until her mind had been prepared for this appalling thing she had discovered.

In the last book, we learned that Peter is the son of Grace Thompson who was rejected by her parents, Peter’s grandparents, The Dobbses, after she ran off with the oldest son of Vine Thompson, a criminal gang leader. When Grace died, after having another baby, who apparently also died, The Dobbses adopted her 3-year-old son, Peter, and raised him.

This book opens with Arthur driving Judy and her friends out to the country to visit an antique store and tea room. After admiring the antiques, they go into the tea room for a snack. Horace asks a pretty girl who is playing the piano to dance. But they soon suspect that her loud piano playing was to distract the owners and guests from the antique store being robbed. The thieves and the piano player make their getaway by stealing Arthur’s beloved car. After the police come, Judy and her friends chase them down and end up almost getting run over by the gang when they get out of their car and try to block the road. At the last minute, the young girl turns the wheel from the driver and saves their lives. She is injured and the grateful Boltons take her home to recover where they learn she has amnesia.

The heart of this book is uncovering the mystery of the girl’s background. Judy calls her “Honey” as they don’t know her name and she has honey-colored hair. She is sweet, eager to please, and grateful to the Boltons for taking her in. But is she a thief and part of a criminal family? Or was she kidnapped? Judy uncovers some lies Honey has told but doesn’t want to believe that Honey is anything other than the good and lovely person she appears to be. But whom was Honey meeting in secret in the dead of night and what was in the package that the stranger gave her? And what are those chimes Judy keeps hearing in her home seemingly out of nowhere? To uncover the truth Dr. Bolton invites a psychiatrist friend from New York City to observe Honey. Thus, we meet Pauline Faulkner, his daughter, who becomes a good friend of Judy and plays a part in this and several other of her mysteries down the road. Judy starts keeping a notebook to record clues and observations and discovers many inconsistencies that make Honey suspicious (to the reader, at least). She wants to catch the thieves that almost killed her and her friends as well as recover the stolen antiques and discover what the connection is between the gang and Honey. When Mrs. Dobbs, Peter’s grandmother, has a stroke she becomes strangely attached to Honey and starts calling her “Grace,” the name of her dead daughter.

While Honey is caring for Mrs. Dobbs, Judy discovers a musical vase that was stolen from the antique store hidden under the floorboards in Honey’s bedroom. That solves the mystery of the chimes but things are looking very dark indeed for the Boltons’ young house guest. Judy feels angry and betrayed. Can Honey really be the sneaky and criminal liar that all the evidence seems to indicate? Judy thinks so and wants her arrested immediately. The cooler heads of her parents and Peter persuade Judy to not judge until they hear Honey’s explanation.

When Judy gets a letter from Pauline who has been doing some detective work for her in New York City, she thinks she has all of the answers and confronts Honey with her disturbing discoveries. But she is not prepared for the story that Honey has to tell. By the end of the book, there are tears aplenty but they are tears of happiness and Honey will start her life anew with a “clean slate.”

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Love & Jane

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Clueless

There was a good movie in here somewhere but sadly I failed to find it. And I looked pretty hard. I watched it twice on DVR and it wasn’t easy. Introduced by some really lovely opening titles and a mood-setting soundtrack, I was hopeful. But the movie was not cohesive. The plots were manifold and all over the place, I didn’t like or understand the heroine, Lilly, and the figure of Jane Austen seemed gratuitous. She appears to Lilly to guide her out of her unhappy professional and personal life but never gives her any useful guidance or good advice. On camera, at least. It was peppered with talk about and references to the beloved author and her books but the character of Jane Austen didn’t seem to have a real role other than for her entertainment value for Jane Austen fans.

Lilly is the president of the local Jane Austen Society. She was born 200 years too late. We know this because of her old-fashioned hairdo, clothes, and vocabulary. Fiddlesticks! Bejabbers! And she says she hates the internet and computers. Apparently, she only likes books if they are made out of paper, although one of her society members only does audiobooks which she seems to have no problem with. She also doesn’t have a problem with using a digital assistant in her home (Play Music!). When we first meet her, she has a meltdown because a book she wants to buy is snatched off the shelf in front of her by a store clerk for an online purchaser who bought it a minute and a half ahead of her. She is mightily and loudly offended. This did not endear her to me. I order all of my books online or download them on my Kindle from the library. On occasion I do buy hardcover books, but certainly not from a new bookstore in person because they wouldn’t have them in stock. So that is bad or I’m a bad person somehow? And this customer was buying a paper book! The second strike against Miss Lillie is the way she treated her long-term boyfriend. After meeting him late for dinner she complains that the pub where she holds her Jane Austen Society meetings is closing down and they might have to disband the Society because of the difficulty of finding a comparable venue. He in turn shares the good news that he has gotten a promotion and will be moving to Chicago. He wants her to come with him as his wife and presents a ring. He points out that nothing is holding her in New York other than a job she hates. Now, he can take her on the longed-for trip to England and she can get back to her writing because she won’t have to work. She takes great umbrage at these two fantastic opportunities because she didn’t achieve them on her own, and he is somehow behaving like “Mr. Collins” which is about the worst insult imaginable. She accuses him of trying to “rescue” her. Fair enough, but other than complaining, what steps is she taking to rescue herself and achieve her goals on her own? Nada. In fact, when she gets home from her date, she throws her almost-finished manuscript in the trash. Turns out that in addition, she doesn’t love him “like that.” Then what the Dickens was she doing with him in the first place?

At work, she meets the store clerk who wouldn’t let her buy her book and it turns out he is a tech mogul and the new owner of that bookstore. The marketing company she works for is supposed to create a campaign to drive customers to his bookstore which will somehow tie people into the app company he created. It’s all very vague and convoluted. But the important thing is he gives an impassioned speech about how he wants to foster a personal human-to-human connection between people who love books and reading and get more people to shop at bookstores. Somehow Lillie curiously interprets this as him wanting to end bookstores altogether because he is a tech guy. She is very hostile towards him even though their mutual attraction is palpable and he really couldn’t have been lovelier towards her. She is resentful about working on his ad campaign even though it is practically tailor made to her own passion for bookstores and books and a huge opportunity for her. She even has a negative reaction when Trevor offers his bookstore as the new home of her Jane Austen Society. She accepts but with very bad grace. I just didn’t get how a supposedly mature woman could be so silly. She certainly was no Elizabeth Bennett.

Interwoven throughout Lilly’s shattered dreams about being an author, her thawing hostility towards Trevor the more she gets to know him, and her bewildering project for his company are her friend Alisha’s romantic problems and misunderstandings. Most of those scenes had no reason to exist other than to invite some vague comparisons to Emma. Queue matchmaking montage.

So what is the role of Jane Austen in all of this, you may ask? Well, nothing really. She comes to Lilly as a kind of imaginary friend or ghost because Lilly longs for her wise advice. She pops in and out of Lilly’s life, teaches her about having tea, gives her dancing lessons, and tells her she doesn’t know how to be happy. Very helpful. They bond over Colin Firth’s Pride and Prejudice and throw popcorn at each other. There are some amusing fish-out-of-water situations. They are united in their disdain for Trevor, who doesn’t deserve the attitude, so no help in the romance department at all. When Lilly finally finishes her manuscript supposedly with Jane’s encouragement (off-screen) Jane submits it to a publisher behind her back because she knows Lilly is too weak to do so. Strangely, Lilly does not resent Jane’s interference and help. But boy, she does get mad at Trevor because when it is accepted for publication, she finds out that he just bought the publishing company and he may have brought her manuscript to their attention. I guess she only doesn’t want to be rescued by men, but ghosts are fine. All is ironed out when Trevor quotes from Persuasion and gets a second chance with her. In the end, she is planning her second novel, though we’re not sure what ever happened to the first one. And Jane goes back to wherever she came from presumably to “help” the next Jane Austen fan-girl. So, irrational heroine, convoluted plot that never really came together, bad editing which I didn’t get into, and a waste of the Jane Austen character. I think Alison Sweeney was miscast. Ben Ayers as Trevor was fine. Acting-wise they both competently did as they were directed. There were some nice sets and a couple of amusing scenes.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Charlotte Fairlie

/ Rebekahrox / Leave a comment

by D.E. Stevenson

Spoilers

As much as I enjoy D.E. Stevenson’s writings, settings, and stories, there is always a little fly in the ointment. For one, most of the time her endings are way too abrupt and often leave an unresolved problem and a lack of closure. I can live with that if it is the first of a trilogy or there is a sequel. She avoids drama like the plague. Exciting and longed-for confrontations and comeuppances often happen behind the scenes and the reader is told about what happened later. And sometimes her heroines do everything in their power to avoid happiness. They make decisions that sacrifice their happiness for the sake of others. Again, this would be OK if the greater good was served by the sacrifice, but often it is based on a lack of self-esteem. Sometimes they are wet noodles and won’t stand up for themselves often to the detriment of others as well as theirselves. This book features three of these plot elements. Thankfully, being a wet noodle is not Charlotte Fairlie’s problem.

We meet our heroine as the new headmistress of an elite girls’ school, St. Elizabeths. Although young for the job, being in her late twenties, she is an Oxford graduate and eminently qualified. She is a former student, who was boarded there when she was thrown out of her beloved father’s life by her new stepmother. Her sad past has only made her strong and empathetic. She proves to be very popular and respected by the staff and students but one long-tenured teacher, Miss Pinkerton, becomes her nemesis. The older woman is wracked with hatred and jealousy towards Charlotte. She feels sure that the longed-for post of headmistress would have been hers but for the young upstart. I loved the way Charlotte navigated all of Miss Pinkerton’s machinations with wisdom, tact, and sense. She won me over completely early in the book when faced with a malignant threat from Miss Pinkerton, she gets out in front of the problem with aplomb. Thus, what could have resulted in scandal and calamity for both her and a young student turned into a powerful friendship with the head of St. Elizabeth’s board of directors and a strong bond with the student.

That unusual young student, Tessa, is a charming and fearless young girl who obviously hero-worships and loves Charlotte. When she invites her headmistress to spend her vacation at Targ, her beloved island home in the highlands of Scotland, Charlotte decides to throw caution to the winds and accepts. She and Tessa’s divorced father, the laird, fall deeply in love with each other. He proposes marriage and here comes the fly in the ointment. She refuses him for a couple of cockamamie reasons when all of her objections could have been easily overcome by some honest communication. It flies in the face of what we have come to know about Charlotte and how she always handles her business. Of course, all ends happily with one of D.E. Stevenson’s trademark rushed endings, but I was still disappointed in Charlotte, whom I had come to trust and admire.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and esteemed Charlotte Fairlie up until the point when she did her darndest to break her own heart and the hearts of the two people who have come to mean the world to her. In addition to the love problems, there is a side story of Tessa’s best friend at school, Donny, and her two brothers. The three siblings are the victims of a toxic parent and their story almost ends in the worst tragedy imaginable. It was shocking.

The large and small joys, dramas, and adventures at the school and on Targ were as involving as I have come to expect from D.E. Stevenson. It is almost magical the way she makes outwardly ordinary characters and their journeys fascinating and gripping. She makes small things seem big. And when big things really do happen it’s jaw-dropping.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.