Oh the huge manatee!
Once upon a time, there was a girl that read romance novels like chocoholics eat Godiva’s. She read and read and read, sometimes devouring 2-3 books in a day. Off and on, she’d get stuck in a rut and read nothing but Regency romances (both traditional and full of teh sexxin’z). One day, she picked up some books from work on a whim, and one of them happened to be Teresa Medeiros’s A Kiss to Remember. Our heroine sat down and read it around work time, sleep time, and such, only to remember that she already had a copy of it somewhere and was less than enraptured with it both times that she had consumed said guilty pleasure.
To put it bluntly: you can tell that A Kiss to Remember was written on a deadline. It has no heart, no soul, no real wit. The most engaging character is the murderous little Lottie, who would be awesome if she didn’t suddenly go on the straight and narrow. Hell, to be honest, I was more interested in why Lottie was so obsessed with murder, poison, etc., than I was whether or not the Duke and Duchess of Devonbrooke got their jollies or their damnable heir(s).
All of this is quite sad to me because I love Teresa Medeiros’s writing style and infusion of wit in her books. This one, however, is a party I just can’t get behind. It’s too much like everything else, absent the brilliant originality I usually associate with her work.
Someone pass the Alka-Seltzer, please?