Author – Julia Quinn
ISBN-13 – 9780061491887
But I had two major issues with this book:
1. Poor Pacing
2. Waffling External Conflict
My first major issue with this book was pacing. The main characters didn't meet until after page 50, they didn't kiss until page 248 (if I remembered correctly), and they didn't finally get it on until page 300-something! Why Ms. Quinn even bothered to have them shack up so late in the plot baffled me. Why not wait until they married each other? I am sure that the author could have written something equally as entertaining and humorous to get the reader to their wedding vows...and finally into the bedroom. But had I had not been lured in by her sharp writing style and humor I would have slammed the book shut by page 50!
Secondly, I was disappointed that that there was no real conflict between the characters. The whole 'did he kill his fiancé' bit was worked out by page 150 and the Russian prince was obviously a non-issue because our heroine admitted that she did not like him herself fairly early on. The main characters have committed to love and marriage, at least theoretically, before they even sleep with one another. And then, for some reason which I have yet to determine, the author decided to include a third party conflict to wrap everything up. While the heroine displayed great gumption, and our hero was determined to save the day, this external conflict doesn't reveal anything about the characters to us and it only slowed the plot. If the conflict was needed to elicit character then why wasn't it included earlier to bring the characters closer together? At the point our heroine is abducted, we already know that that our main characters were in love with each other, so why include the conflict? The external conflict added little to our characters realizing anything about themselves and failed to move the plot along significantly.
Ultimately, I would actually recommend reading this book. I just think that readers should be aware of its pitfalls. Surely I am harping, but that is what I love to do! One of these days I will write my own book and it will surely be PERFECT!
Like I said, I enjoyed reading it. I just wanted more - more conflict, more of the characters together bantering (Ms. Quinn writes great dialogue here), more pulling each other into alcoves, and less external conflict without reason. So all in all, "London" made me laugh and had one of the more original and romantic proposals of the many romance novels that I have read recently.
Happy Reading,
FindingAlpha
Have to agree with FindingAlpha; this book was a snoozefest. I still think Quinn is a strong writer, but she's having trouble with plotting and pacing. There's no conflict in her books anymore! This may sound like sacrilege, but I almost think she should switch to contemporaries. Her skill with dialogue and witty repartee is phenomenal, and I would love to see it applied to a modern romance.
ReplyDeleteI'm right there with you on this one, Swampy! I really did not understand what the Russian nobleman was doing in this story -- he didn't make it as a foil so he had no purpose, and was annoying to boot! Why do authors inevitably persist in portraying Russian men as campy, pompous, self-absorbed Fabio-like windbags or worse yet, scurrilous fiends bent on usurping someone's throne or deflowering the virginal daughter - yikes) JQ writes funny, nay, hilarious scenes between her main characters (I liked the repartee flying from the two characters from their windows; I could see them and they sounded believable as characters learning to fall inlove with each other) which make me agree with your sacreligious thought she might do a pretty decent job as a writer of contemporaries.
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