A Younger Man is full of grins and Tom Swifties. I can see you all now scratching your heads and saying “what”?!? Let me explain. In the old Tom Swift books by Victor Appleton, Tom never just said anything. He always said it jokingly, quickly, angrily, heartily, loudly – you get the point – the books were loaded with adverbs. Years ago a type of wordplay developed; you try to devise a sentence in which an adverb relates properly and punningly to the subject of the sentence. Here’s an example: “What this team needs is a man who can hit sixty home runs a year” said Tom ruthlessly. This is called a Tom Swiftie.

This book is very much like the old Tom Swift stories, since the characters never say anything without a qualifying adverb. A little of this is fine, but when there’s an adverb in every single statement that comes out of the mouth of every single character, it makes for a rushed and juvenile style of writing. Also the characters grin constantly. They grin when they are happy, they grin when they are angry, they grin when they are hungry, they grin after they’ve had sex. It got to the point where I was counting the grins and thinking of Jack Nicholson as the Joker in Batman.

Natalie Bailey got married out of high school. The plan was that she would support her husband Derek through college and then he’d work while she earned her degree. But Derek wanted to go to law school, so she supported him through that. Then she got pregnant with twins, after which he divorced her – and hasn’t paid any child support. She can’t go after him since she has no money, and while I know how tough it can be to go after a dead beat dad, but she doesn’t even try. Natalie makes enough money as a waitress to scrape by, but that’s about it. Anyway, after a pep talk by her friends, she decides to go for it. She gets a grant and enrolls in college.

On Natalie’s first day of class, her old car gets a flat but a motorcycle riding hunk stops by to help her. The hunk turns out to be Maxwell Sullivan, her archaeology professor. Max is a very popular teacher, who also writes thrillers based on his archaeological finds (sort of an armchair Indiana Jones). Max isn’t into love and committment, but he’s attracted to Natalie and admires her gumption in going back to school, working full time, and taking care of her boys. (By the way, Natalie finds a parking place even though she’s late for class. What college is this? I want to work there)!

Well, that’s about it. Most of the rest of the book consists of Max bailing Natalie out of one scrape or another. Her car breaks down, so he finds her a mechanic and invents a part time job for her so she can pay for it. She comes down with the flu, so he nurses her and takes care of the boys. He encourages her when she gets depressed over her grades. And so it goes. There’s some angst on her part about him being younger than she is, he has issues with his father…that’s about the extent of their character development. There isn’t a lot of conflict in this story until close to the end when Natalie’s husband comes back. But in the blink of an eye, all the conflicts disappear and all the problems are magically whisked away.

I had hopes for this book since the storyline seemed promising and I love scientist/teacher heroes. The lack of real conflict and any depth to the characters were major problems, and the adverb-laden style of writing and constant grinning didn’t help either. I’ve been sadly disappointed in the quality of the Silhouette Intimate Moments line for the past year, and this book doesn’t raise my opinion at all.