TEST
Sometimes we need a cozy romance to slow down our world and take a breather. Since Ms. Fforde is an author known for her cozies, I expected to be charmed into a peaceful world with minor setbacks, a world completely different than the one I see around me. Instead, I was given a book with a title pointing one way (Love Letters, how romantic!) but with content pointing another.
Twenty-six-year-old virgin Laura Horseley meets literary agent Eleanora Huckleby at the closing party for the British bookstore where Laura works. Eleanora is impressed with Laura’s wealth of knowledge about modern fiction writers and suggests the young woman help her niece Fenella and her husband organize the literary and music festival they are planning.
Having no job and no social life of note, Laura agrees. Her first assignment is to bag reclusive two-book wonder Dermot Flynn, an Irishman who hasn’t produced a book since his earlier ones skyrocketed him to fame. Laura, who’s loved Dermot’s work for years, is overwhelmed by the task, but gamely agrees because magnate Jacob Stone will back the festival if Dermot is there.
She and her musical friend Monica set off to the small town in Ireland where Dermot lives and will be appearing at a hometown cultural festival. She finds the 35-year old Dermot is a charismatic, charming fellow whose reception at the reading is more like that of a rock star than a reclusive literary genius.
After the event when she asks Dermot if he’ll appear at the literary festival in England, he replies glibly only if she’ll have sex with him. Emboldened by the amount of straight whiskey she’s been drinking and her love of the man’s writing, she agrees. But when they drunkenly get to Dermot’s house, they fall asleep before the deed is done.
So begins Laura’s whirlwind romance with silver-tongued Dermot who may or may not fancy her as much as she does him.
With a title like Love Letters pointing readers to expect a love story, the book doesn’t deliver. Instead the title should be Organizing the Festival. Readers get pages of dialog between Laura and Eleanora, Laura and Monica, Laura and the festival planners, and Laura and everyone it seems except Dermot. Disappointingly, the key times when she is actually falling in love with the man are seen in descriptive paragraphs and not through any meaningful dialog between the two.
As a reader I felt cheated since I wanted to be wooed by the Irish blarney and charm of a literary rogue like Dermot. But Ms. Fforde gives Laura’s friend Grant and Fenella’s husband more personality than the man who has enchanted Laura.
My second disappointment with the book was Laura herself. Her negativity was pervasive and very unappealing. While I understand her reclusive nature might make her somewhat negative in the beginning when she doubted that she could help organize the festival, as she grew in her confidence I expected her to become much more positive. Unfortunately, even toward the end she was still telling Dermot he was going to reject her suggestions before she even gave them to him.
To my mind, cozies should make readers feel renewed and energized after the last page, not lethargic and lackluster. While Love Letters has some warm, fuzzy scenes, for the most part, it didn’t deliver the Irish charm I expected.
Grade: C
Book Type: Contemporary Romance
Sensuality: Subtle
Review Date: 09/03/11
Publication Date: 2011/01
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.