Best Wishes Always
Grade : D+

Once I was enthusiastic about paranormals, but after several years of ubiquitous vamps and shapeshifters, I’m pretty well paranormaled out. Still, I though the genie premise of Best Wishes Always showed promise. Unfortunately, the premise promised what it could not deliver.

Larissa (Larry) Smith is an antiques dealer who has been dealt a bad hand by fate. Her fiancé, the love of her life, died in the Middle East, and she’s still an emotional wreck. All of her energy has gone into building her antiques business, but the recession hasn’t helped. Then one day she gets the break of a lifetime – a chance to buy a rare and valuable estate for almost nothing. It’s too good to be true, right? There’s a catch, right? Well, yes, in fact there is.

With the estate comes a battered old lamp and when Larry cleans it up a bit, a gorgeous genie by the name of John (Jo) Trelawney appears and tells her she can have three wishes. Larry only wants to go back in time, but instead of waiting for exact instructions (which would have instructed Jo to reunite Larry with her departed fiancé) Jo hijacks the wish and brings them back to his past, back to India over a century ago. There, stranded in Jo’s history, the two of them must learn to rely on and trust each other – or completely waste another wish.

I had to struggle a bit to remember the character’s names for the above synopsis. This book took three good weeks to read, mostly because I never got into any of it. You would assume that the male genie/female mistress combination would involve some sort of power struggle within the relationship, but, sadly, that or any other tension fails to appear. Jo never acts subservient – he comes out of the bottle winking and leering - and Larry doesn’t take advantage. Larry also never gives any concerted thought on how best to use her wishes. Am I the only one who would want the whole three wishes thing clarified before using them? Even the genie in Disney’s Aladdin comes down to business right away, nailing down what his street rat master can and cannot do. It’s the first thing they talk about.

Larry is basically a nice person who is still grieving. But Jo is kind of a jerk. It becomes obvious that in his former life he was a user. Not a villain, but happy to take what anyone would give him and walk away. One hundred years in the bottle have made him frustrated and somewhat bitter, but he hasn’t yet had any sort of character epiphany. Back in India Larry sets about trying to change everything in Jo’s village – and doing absolutely nothing to fit in or understand and respect cultural norms there. Within a very short period of time she takes in a herd of street orphans, makes ice cream for the whole village and sets up her own small business to allow for the support of both the orphans and the village’s unemployed. Yay for the American entrepreneurial spirit. Or not. It’s a wonder the people there don’t hang her or set her on fire.

The secondary characters aren’t any better. Larry employs three hicks to help her run her antiques business. Her elderly Aunt Lolly likes to walk off the beaten track, and her best friend makes a love connection with a guy who’s so oily he should skid, not walk. This is the secondary romance.

Best Wishes Always just didn’t satisfy. It’s really a time travel romance with a contemporary paranormal spin, but while the author details some of the flora and fauna of India, there’s very little sense for the time Jo is from. The main romance is tepid at best, and the secondary romance is a divorce waiting to happen. The cover is kind of pink and cute, but what's inside? I’d pass.

Reviewed by Rachel Potter
Grade : D+

Sensuality: Subtle

Review Date : October 7, 2009

Publication Date: 2009

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