Carolina Girl
Grade : D

As a romance reader I generally appreciate stories and characters that are a little off-center, a tad different, or present atypical issues or difficulties. Light and fluffy books often bore me - I appreciate authors taking risks, even if they're not 100% successful. For this reason, I've enjoyed Patricia Rice's work in the past, especially 2002's Almost Perfect, which was reviled by many romance fans but struck a chord with me.

Unfortunately, Carolina Girl struck a chord, too - the wrong one. Featuring emotionally immature leads too confused about themselves to be in a relationship and riddled with confusing and convenient plot devices, this book bored and annoyed me by turns. It took me days to finish it, and when I did my main reaction was relief.

The first thing about Carolina Girl that pushed my buttons (Big Issue #1) is the total dependence of her entire family on the heroine. Successful banker Aurora Jenkins lost her job for challenging the company's status quo. Instead of using her high-powered MBA experience to find another banking position, she returns to her hometown, a small island off the shore of South Carolina, to take care of her father and sister injured in a car accident. On the surface, this is noble and not objectionable at all. Then you find out that said father and sister have been largely living off Aurora's money for years - her dad has a small, struggling cement lawn ornament business and her sister paints them - so if Aurora isn't working they're all in some trouble. Aurora's money starts to run out so quickly that on page 13 she's already looking for a buyer for her flashy BMW convertible. Still her plan is to stay on the island, take care of everything for everyone, and then leave to take a cushy high-paying job in Chicago.

This logic baffles me. If Aurora and the family need the money so badly, wouldn't it make more sense for her to get a job right away? If she had another highly paid job, couldn't she hire someone to assist in her family's recovery? There is a persistent theme throughout the book that "supporting" one's family means providing the means for other fully grown and perfectly capable adults not to work. It's a plotline out of an historical that seems woefully out of place in its contemporary setting. When Aurora is offered a new position with a hefty salary package, one of her first thoughts is that it will allow her to support the rest of her family without them having to earn another dime. However noble and loving the thought is intended to be - Aurora is convinced that she "owes" her sister everything because she raised her after their mother died - I found it repugnant.

Big Issue #2 is the plotline bringing Aurora into contact with hero Clay McCloud, the third of the McCloud brothers featured by the author. A computer game designer and software programmer taking a break from his fast-paced L.A. lifestyle by hanging out in a shack on the beach owned by his brother and sister-in-law, Clay passes the time with a programming assignment to locate the heirs to a tract of land along the water where the state wants to build a park. Clay is loathe to pass along the names because he suspects the state will sell the land to developers and destroy the peace and beauty that is his rural island hideout and his brother's family home. Aurora is determined to make the park a reality, believing that establishing small businesses to complement the park is the only way to ensure the economic future of the island. She wants the names of the heirs and she wants them from Clay yesterday.

I found the land development plotline extremely confusing. Since it is explained in detail, the failure to comprehend may be my fault and not the author's, but I found myself continually having to page back to check details that came before. I also had trouble following the involvement of the other side's many players - the state, the local bank, the head of the tourist commission who hires (then fires) Aurora. The various motivations and bureaucratic steps made little sense to me.

Big Issue #3 is Clay and Aurora themselves. Acting with the dramatic inconsistency of adolescents, the two seem to undergo personality transplants from one page to the next. Clay, self-described as a loner and wary of all MBA's because his ex-fiancée held the degree (what kind of sense does that make?!), has the hots for Aurora from minute one, but his interest in her is mostly physical. As Rice puts it: "So maybe he should scout the layout, learn what made Aurora tick, and build a safe barrier to keep her out of his life while encouraging her into his bed."

That attitude persists for much of the book, although Clay begins to appreciate her mind (he struggles to forgive that pesky degree) and is eventually won over to her cause in the land development struggle. Because he has the hots for her and now believes in her crusade, he ceases to be a loner and seemingly wants to get involved with everyone on many levels. I didn't buy the change.

Clay is at least likable, if immature, in his reactions to Aurora and his knee-jerk attitudes. Aurora, on the other hand, is waspish and tough to like despite her I'll Do Anything For My Family mantra. No-nonsense and sharp-tongued most of the time, she does abrupt about-faces to become a sort of earth mother figure in some scenes. Even Clay comments on her personality quirks: "She could switch from tears and anger to joy and laughter as simply as flipping a light switch."

Her quicksilver changes of mood may have fascinated Clay, but they turned me off. At times I could believe she had an advanced degree and once held a high position at a bank, at others I thought I must be reading a young adult romance because she seemed so childish. This couple doesn't resolve things as much as they do argue about them superficially and then draw individual half-baked conclusions to move on from. This is not my idea of a grown-up, emotionally mature relationship.

Then, to top it all off, there's the magically contrived windfall that comes to Aurora and the ridiculous way she uses it. Still, what's an author to do since this is a romance and everybody knows that requires a happy ending? Aurora has her entire family to support, you know.

Reviewed by Nicole Miale
Grade : D

Sensuality: Warm

Review Date : April 8, 2004

Publication Date: 2004

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