My Valentine is the latest entry in Jove’s “Friends Romance” line. Like the others, it says on the cover, “In matters of the heart, you can always trust your friends.” Like the others, it has absolutely nothing to do with friends. Memo to Jove: Table this line until you get in some manuscripts that actually have friends in them. The lack of “friends” is only a minor problem here, however. Though it features a “sweet” love story with no actual sex, My Valentine also has an old school hero straight out of a seventies romance, when the men were beasts and the women were bunny rabbits. If this is not your type of hero, this makes for some difficult reading.

The book starts with a cute idea. The heroine, Rosalyn Mitchell, makes and delivers valentines for a valentine factory. The woman she works for, Esther Howland, is an actual historical figure who did found a valentine factory in Worcester, Massachusetts. And Rosalyn herself is initially likable. She’s cute, ambitious (she’s saving for college so she can become a teacher), and she’s a little tired of attending so many weddings. It seems she is so good at her job that she has inspired several people to propose to their sweethearts, and her efforts have earned her the nickname of “Cupid.”

And then she meets him – Christian Garret. Christian is the stepson of Callie Garret, the woman who had been Rosalyn’s guardian until her untimely death. Although Callie wrote countless letter telling Christian she was ill and hoping they could reconcile, Christian never visited. Now that Callie is dead, he wants everything left to him by his father, including a ruby necklace that had been his grandmother’s. When he looks all over his house and can’t find it, his attorney tells him that Callie had a ward. Though he hasn’t met Rosalyn, he assumes that she stole the rubies. He plans to seduce her so she’ll “come clean” when they’re in bed. What a prince.

Christian befriends Rosalyn, and gives his name as “Chris Brown” so she won’t be suspicious. She seems nice, honest, hard working, and poor. Christian steams ahead with his plan to seduce her, and find the rubies she “took.” Christian spends more time with Rosalyn as she delivers valentines. Boy is she beautiful. Christian reminds himself that she must be a thief, and continues with his seduction plans. At one point, Rosalyn’s employer loans her some valuable pearls to wear to a wedding. Christian accompanies her to the wedding and steals the pearls – while he is kissing her! Christian figures that she’ll admit she has the rubies, and he’ll give the pearls back. He lets Rosalyn feel horrible and tell her employer that she has lost the family heirloom before he has a coach driver “find” the pearls. Then he stalwartly renews his plans to seduce Rosalyn, and find out about the rubies. At this point, I knew that Christian belonged securely in the horrible hero hall of fame, and I knew that I would never be able to forgive him, even though Rosalyn eventually does. And though I liked poor Rosalyn at first, I just couldn’t respect her by the end; she had such horrible taste in men.

If you have always wondered what sort of sins you would be willing to forgive a hero, so long as he confesses his love and proposes at the end, then this might be an interesting book for you to try. Personally, I thought Christian would have served perfectly as the villain in a seduction novel – a form of literature common in the early nineteenth century. They always started with a sweet talking, dashing suitor, and always ended with the heroine alone and pregnant – and often dead.

I also have to wonder, why was a book called My Valentine that was entirely centered around Valentine’s Day published in September? Wouldn’t January or February be a little more appropriate? Really such a question is beside the point, because My Valentine is a cute idea gone horribly, horribly wrong. Unless you are nostalgic for the early days of romance, don’t even think of reading this book.