The Valentine Bride
Grade : F

It has been a while since I picked up a book and wondered why I bothered staying with it all the way to the bitter end. This haphazardly plotted novel about a restaurant family in London featured an irritating heroine and enough awkward plotting to make it close to unreadable. Add in the fact that the hero of this piece is the heroine's first cousin and the whole thing becomes almost like a trainwreck - you don't want to watch it and yet you cannot turn away.

Louise Valentine, at odds with her family since learning that she was adopted as a child, has turned her full efforts to building her own business, a small PR firm. Louise's isolation from the family begins to change when her cousin Max wants to hire her to do PR for the Valentine family's restaurant chain. The two bicker, sometimes for a reason and sometimes just to drive up the page count, and then Louise agrees to do the work in return for a kiss. Gee, that doesn't sound ridiculous and contrived now, does it?

As one might expect, Louise and Max then work together on the project. As one might also expect, sparks start to fly between them. Unfortunately, many of these sparks come in the form of Max and Lousie pouting and holding grudges over various wrongs, real and imagined, that occurred when they were in their teens and early twenties. Since the hints given by the author seem to show both characters as thirty-something, one would think they would have had time to get over these spats. I know I wished that they had. While I can sympathize with the genuinely tortured heroes and heroines out there, Louise's bitterness over having been sacked for being an incompetent restaurant hostess just didn't resonate with me.

Not only did Louise's bickering and generally petulant attitude make her seem unprofessional, but it also makes her an unsympathetic character. In my mind's eye, I couldn't help but envision her guilt-tripping and throwing tantrums at Max for the rest of their days. That just isn't a happy picture. The plotting of the novel is also choppy and the haphazard feel of the story's flow makes it harder to get to know the characters - something which did not help Louise recover from the poor first impression given.

However, there was one last plot point that sent this story careening over the edge for me. The hero and heroine are first cousins. While this would not be an absolute deal-breaker for me, in this particular story it was creepy. As readers, we hear many times about how Max and Louise were very close as children and spent a lot of time together. It's just unsettling to see these two falling for each other when from the backstory, they sound almost like brother and sister. At one point Max tells Louise, "We've known one another all our lives, Louise. It's the sex we're catching up on." A shudder ran down my spine.

While I have not read any of the other Brides of Bella Lucia books, this entry in the series certainly does not commend it to me. The story is awkwardly crafted, the characters do not appeal, and then there is the entire "first cousins falling in love" issue. I just do not enjoy a story that ranges from dull to irritating to downright icky. In addition, since this novel is less than 200 pages, it lacks the size to make an adequate doorstop, thus rendering it absolutely useless from my perspective.

Reviewed by Lynn Spencer
Grade : F
Book Type: Series Romance

Sensuality: Subtle

Review Date : January 25, 2007

Publication Date: 2007/02

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Lynn Spencer

I enjoy spending as much time as I can between the covers of a book, traveling through time and around the world. When I'm not having adventures with fictional characters, I'm an attorney in Virginia and I love just hanging out with my husband, little man, and the cat who rules our house.
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