Let me start this review by saying that books in the first person, particularly romances in the first person, make me especially nervous. Sometimes it's good (hello, Linda Howard and your should-be-annoying-former-cheerleader, Blair!), and sometimes it's very, very bad (let us not delve too deeply into my post-Twilight hate fest. But seriously). Anyway, risky risky risky proposition, especially in a genre new to the author.
Ladies (and gentlemen?), may I please bring your attention to Lisa Kleypas and her new, first person contemporary romances, the latest of which is Smooth Talking Stranger.
For the ease of this writing, I am going to refer to them as the Travis Series, although I'm not sure Kleypas is actually designating them as such.
These books have focused on the wealthy Houstonian Travis family, whose men are men, and whose women are pretty gutsy too. The reason I hesitate to name them as the Travis series is because in three books (no, it's not a trilogy, there is very obviously at least one more book to come) is because the first person is always the heroine, and so far only one of those women has been a Travis herself.
In Smooth Talking Stranger, Ella Varner tells us about how one day her mother called her up to say that her emotionally unstable sister has just birthed and abandoned a baby boy. Ella reluctantly rushes to the scene, determined to save not so much her mother as the baby from her mother, and sets about trying to find the baby's father. You know, to take responsiblity and pay, etc. etc. etc.
Enter Jack Travis, suspected daddy #1, and fortunately it's established very early that he did not, in fact, impregnate Ella's sister. Fortunate, because who wants a heroine who takes her sister's sloppy seconds?
Jack graciously helps Ella find the man who did father the baby, falls in love with Ella, deals with her emotional baggage, loves the baby, blah blah blah.
Trite Harlequin concept? Probably. But for some reason, possibly that pesky first person account, I was completely riveted. I wanted to know why Jack was so keen to help Ella, I wanted to know what was going to happen with the sister and her dirty preacher babydaddy, and I wanted to know when Jack and Ella were going to get naked. Which they eventually did. Several times. And it was great.
It's light and fluffy, but not silly or unreadable by any stretch of the imagination. If I had to register one complaint, it would be about the first person narration. And not because it doesn't work, but because it does work, and I found myself wanting to know what was going on in that uber-sexy head of Jack's, not just Ella's. When there's a sexy Alpha-Male in the house, third person omniscient is the way to go.
Plot- 1 (potentially lame, but well delivered)
Characters- .5 (not a whole lot of time spent developing Ella before Jack shows up, which was a staple of the first two books in the series)
Sex- 1+ (parking garage. And then after the parking garage... whew)
Style- .5 (really, really wish Ella's wasn't our only perspective)
Consumption- 1 (considering I read it in less than a day... yeah)
TOTAL- 4+
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