TEST
I love mythology. I’ve loved reading stories of myths and legends since I was a little girl. Unfortunately, the mythological elements in Cupid: The Amorous Arrow are handled with a farcial and sometimes heavy hand. The mixture of gods and mortals worked in Karen Harbaugh’s mythological Regency Romance trilogy, but she based it on the myth of Psyche and Cupid. All the gods and goddesses do in this story is take pratfalls and get in the way of a promising romantic comedy. 
Cupid is in trouble. Seems as though his arrows do not work all that well anymore. And he thought Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall were the perfect couple. Fortuna, goddess of fortune (who wants to be goddess of love) has convened the council of the gods to pass judgement on Cupid for his many mistakes. They sentence him to fix up the botched love life of Amberlin O’Rourke and her Aunt Cecilia as well. (Years ago, Cecilia and her love life was one of Cupid’s “mistakes”).
Amberlin is a plumber who is also an artist. She spends her time fixing toilets and painting for tourists in Central Park while dreaming of making her mark as a muralist like Diego Rivera. Cupid and his mother Venus decide that Jeremy Barrett would be perfect for Amberlin. He’s handsome, he’s rich, he’s nice as can be – so what if he is east-coast, old money, blue blood preppy and she is pure Brooklyn – they are the gods of love and eros and they know all about these things.
But Fortuna sticks her nose into the picture. She has decided that Amberlin’s old high school classmate Vinny would be perfect for her. He’s a plumber, like she is, but he’s rolling in dough since he won 55 million in the lottery. So what if he has no couth and thinks that black velvet paintings of Elvis are the height of artistic acheivement? He’s rich, he’s blue collar, and he wants her.
Add to this mixture Amberlin’s aunt who has a vendetta against the Barrett Department Store. She blames them for selling her a cursed wedding dress that caused her husband to run off with another woman years ago. And Cecilia is a Sicilian – they live for revenge. Then she meets Jeremy’s grandfather Frederick Barrett.
Amberlin is quite likable in a dense sort of way. She is instantly attracted to Jeremy but almost immediately decides that he just couldn’t love a blue-collar Brooklyn girl like her even though he shows every sign of being smitten. Even after they have a night of toe-curling passion, she runs away thinking he doesn’t really love her. Gad, Amberlin you are sooo dumb!
Jeremy is a paragon. He really has no faults at all and I liked him very much. I almost wished for a few flaws in his perfection to make him more human and less god-like but he was flawless and perfect and just too good to be true.
The farcial elements in the story worked very well in the contemporary sections but were too heavy-handed in the sections involving the gods and goddesses. All that scheming and underhanded dealing involving Cupid, Fortuna and Venus were intrusive and interrupted things at precisely the same time as I was getting interested in Amberlin and Jeremy.
ImaJinn books is a small press that specializes in romance mixed with fantasy and other “new age” elements. Miriam Pace and Jacqueline Hamilton show definite promise with romantic comedy and I hope that they will write one soon. I’d love to see how they do without all those silly gods and goddesses getting in the way.
Grade: C
Book Type: Fantasy Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 16/10/99
Publication Date: 1999
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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.