TEST
Enjoyment of If the Slipper Fits will depend on how much patience you have for a story that relies on misunderstandings and a lack of communication to keep the plot chugging along. Cinderella and her prince may have spent their night at the ball, but in this retelling Annie Sayer and Connor Emory spend most of their time dancing around the Big Issue in their past.
Connor Emory’s family always owned a summer house on Candlewick Island in Maine. The last summer they spent there, Connor fell in love with local girl Annie Sayer, whose mother worked at the estate. He’d thought she felt the same way, but at the end of the summer, Annie broke it off with him for reasons she never explained.
Ten years later, Connor is a successful Atlanta businessman and Annie runs the house on Candlewick Island For the first time since that long ago summer, Connor comes to the island, along with his cartoonishly Italian uncle Marcello and Marcello’s two daughters. Annie is nervous enough to see Connor, and that’s before he reveals the reason for his visit: he’s selling the house to Marcello, and she and her entire staff will be let go at the end of the summer to make room for Marcello’s staff. Annie’s crew soon hatches a plot to convince Marcello not to buy, mostly involving such wacky hijinks as pretending the house is haunted and falling apart around them, which gives her time to try and rekindle her romance with Connor.
If the Slipper Fits is more serious than its cartoon cover might indicate. It does come complete with kooky secondary characters, cutesy fairy tale touches, and the zany subplot of the employees trying to sabotage the sale of the house. But, appropriately enough for a romance, most of the story deals with Annie and Connor’s relationship, and there is too much heartbreak and frustration there to offer much humor.
As the story goes on, it becomes clear that Connor and Annie’s inability to have a simple conversation about what broke them apart all those years ago is the main force moving the plot. They keep having very nice talks where they respond well to each other, they have obvious chemistry and affection for one another, and they can’t keep their hands, or lips, off each other. But then the issue of their past will come up, and the communication immediately shuts down. Every conversation seems to end like this:
“But there are things you don’t understand about that, Connor. There were circumstances you didn’t know about. Things had happened-”
“No. Don’t make excuses for what happened. Don’t try to rewrite history by telling me all the reasons you did what you did. And for God’s sake, don’t tell me things are different now. I don’t want to hear it.” (Chapter 6)
Or this:
“How many ways do I have to tell you, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Is it still so painful for you?”
“It’s not painful for me, Anne. My God, it’s been over a decade. How pathetic do you think I am? I just don’t think it would be productive to get into who hurt who and why. Do you?”
She exhaled. He didn’t know. He couldn’t. (Chapter 8)
Or this:
“This has nothing to do with me teaching you a lesson or getting back at you for anything you did in the past. I was hurt, sure, we both know that. But it’s over. All I’m saying now is that I do not want to be taken in again. You took me by surprise before, yes, but I won’t be taken by surprise again now.”
“Why, Connor? Why can’t you let go of all that and let us live in the present?”
“That’s just what I’ve been saying, Anne. Let’s forget it. You’re the one who’s not letting it go, Anne.” (Chapter 12)
Evidently when he says he doesn’t want to talk about it, he means he doesn’t want her to talk about it. He’s still free to throw the break-up in her face, as he does more than once. He can’t trust her, but he doesn’t want to hear her out either. Of course, it would help if Annie didn’t prove him right. Even when Connor is finally ready to hear her out, does Annie tell him the truth? No! Annie rationalizes it this way:
“She certainly wasn’t going to tell him all the reasons she did what she did. Some of those reasons were dead and buried, and she would make sure they stayed that way.”
Instead, she offers up some vague half-truth that allows the cycle of misunderstandings to continue, including a big one set into motion by the evil stepmother character in the final third, resulting in more exchanges like this:
“You should ask her…”
“Right now Anne Sayer is the last person I want to talk to.”
What else is new? All of which left this reader muttering things like this:
“For the love of God, would you people just talk to each other!”It wouldn’t be so bad if Annie had a good reason for staying silent, but she doesn’t. It seems as though she acts this way only to add to the page count, and the reader doesn’t know her motivations until everything comes tumbling out in the final third of the book. While some authors can effectively keep secrets from not only the hero/heroine but the reader as well, Fox doesn’t manage it here. All the reader gets are melodramatic glimpses that perpetuate the conflict.
What we’re left with is a hero who spends most of the book thinking the worst of a heroine who’s too busy playing the martyr to clear things up. That makes for an unconvincing happy ending. I didn’t believe for one second that, should a situation arise two minutes after the last page that casts Annie in a bad light, Connor wouldn’t go right back to distrusting her.
It’s a shame, because otherwise, it’s not a bad book. Not a great book, but not bad. The final scenes once everything is cleared up are better than anything that come before them, including a suitably romantic ending. The writing is fairly smooth and it’s populated with a diverse cast of characters, even if it does come off like an extended Harlequin American Romance. But Fox is so intent on having her characters avoid the conversation this scenario clearly requires that a better title might have been If the Muzzle Fits, as the reader is left waiting for a conversation that is too long in coming.
Grade: C-
Book Type: Contemporary Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 09/05/03
Publication Date: 2003
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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.