TEST
The Next Best Thing is part of Arabesque’s Ports of Call series. Each book centers around an exotic locale, in this case Venice. While I do enjoy books with interesting settings, they have to be more than a travelogue to hold my attention, and, unfortunately, this one didn’t amount to much more than that.
April Stockwood has a list of dreams she’d like to accomplish before she dies, and going to Venice is one of them. New to travel, she accompanies her friend Stephanie, who regularly goes to Italy on business. Unfortunately, upon arrival Stephanie is called away on a work emergency and before April can reach her hotel she misplaces all of her credit cards and documentation. Without a passport, she cannot register at her lodgings, but fortunately at the police station, she meets Marina Cesso, a kind friendly Venetian woman who takes her home to her villa to stay.
Hayden Calloway is like an adopted son to Marina Cesso. He has been with the Foreign Service in Italy for a relatively short time, but has formed a fast friendship with her son, Santiago. He is staying with the Cessos on vacation when Marina brings home the stray April. It is very lucky for April that Hayden works at the American Embassy and can help her out. But it may also be good luck for Hayden as April once had a crush on him back when they both went to high school in Philly. Back then Hayden was a hot property, and April felt he was out of her league. But April is older now and goes after what she wants. The question is – does April want more than a brief fling in a beautiful city?
The book begins inauspiciously with April’s complete loss of documentation and financial resources. While this does allow her to meet Hayden, it doesn’t reflect well on her as a character. It may be understandable that as a first-time traveler she would be less savvy about the documentation required in other countries, but the fact that she sits for hours at the police station and does nothing to contact her credit card company about the theft of her card makes her seem pretty flaky and somewhat passive. Her don’t-sweat-the-small-stuff attitude is admirable in that she refuses to allow this poor beginning to ruin her vacation, but this same carefree outlook could have easily put her in danger had not the author been pulling different, more romantic, strings.
The Next Best Thing began on an off-note, and from there meandered on with detail about April and Hayden’s jaunts about Venice. For a good while the focus was split between details of what there is to see around the city and April and Hayden’s dull and repetitive inner musings about each other. Kitt’s habit of telling, not showing did little to make either type of exploration interesting. The story’s conflict is slow to emerge as Kitt hoards details about April and Hayden’s back stories until late in the book. By then Hayden’s, at least, seems entirely extraneous. Also, the problems of their separate locations and April’s daughter’s reaction to her having a boyfriend go unaddressed completely.
Finally, there is the unsolved mystery of Hayden’s availability. Seriously, why is this guy not taken? If he were a player, a bachelor living abroad as an excuse to party without getting a reputation at home, that would one thing. But a nice guy making a decent living with good looks, no dependents, and no objections to marriage? – he should have been bagged and tagged long ago. Yet, incongruously, he has a record of getting dumped by women that makes him seem more like Love’s Chump than Casanova. This does not compute. If he’s as much of a catch as Stephanie, Marina, and April think, he should have been off the market long ago. If he’s as forgettable as most of the women in his life have apparently regarded him, why do Stephanie, Marina, and April regard him as such a catch?
Though a short book, The Next Best Thing took me a long time to read because I kept putting it down to do other – not always appealing – things. The book suffered primarily from the lack of an established and nurtured conflict, but from lack of whole characterization as well. And it seriously dragged in the middle. I’ve heard good things about Kitt as an author in the past (three of the four books reviewed at AAR for her earned B level grades), but, unfortunately, this is not a book I can recommend either as a romance or a travelogue.
Grade: C-
Book Type: Contemporary Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 31/08/05
Publication Date: 2005
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Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.