Eon |

05/10/2005
It's been a long time since I read a romance novel. It's been even longer since I've read a GOOD romance novel. Vampires and highlanders and viscounts, oh my! Give me a break! Same (...), Different Author.
How am I supposed to believe that two people who just met two days ago have already fallen madly and passionately in love? Well, Cabot starts off on the right foot, -they just haven't liked each other. At all. There's a foundation there already, rather than having one slapped together in a week or less.
The characters themselves are great, too. Lou (short for Louise, good lord) is a fairly typical staple of Cabot's adult contemporary books: creative, independent, intelligent. This isn't really a bad thing, though, for two reason. One is that even though these female characters have the same basic personality traits, they all have different habits and histories to explain them. The second is that they're a hell of a lot more likable than some of the characters from Cabot's recent young adult work. I liked Lou. I'd like to slap Mia.
Being a writer myself, one who is rather familiar with Lou's feeling of observing life, writing life, but never living life, I found someone I could relate to in a romance novel--for once. She's fun and spunky, a little naive, with a lot of defense mechanisms, including a sharp-edged sense of humor. Romance novel heroines have this habit of falling under one trait: independent or innocent or intelligent, etc. Not Lou, who is a refreshing mishmash of all those things.
And thank god for Jack. Finally! Jack is a womanizer who doesn't want to commit. Note here I say "doesn't want to" rather than "is afraid", because for most of the book, he isn't afraid of commitment. And the reason for all this? HE'S A MAN! Cabot doesn't make any excuses for Jack. He wasn't beaten as a child, he didn't have his heart broken, he's just a guy. A somewhat misguided but over all nice guy.
Jack develops a fear to commit when he realizes that, if it's with Lou, he'd like to. Why, you ask? Again, it's simple: he's a guy. An American male, which we all know is not a species generally encouraged to express or even understand their emotions. This is not the horrible thing romance novelists and their audiences seem to think it is. There doesn't need to be an excuse for a guy to be promiscuous or cold or insenstive. Give it a rest already, would ya?
And while a number of current romance authors like to pussyfoot around the sex matter, Cabot just goes for it. The over all lack of stupid metaphors that imply something, rather than describe it, was nice.
Some people think the plot was improbable. So, what...vampires aren't improbable? There's very little on the romance shelves that is probable. At least this was enjoyable.
Oh, and the Hindenburg thing? Hilarious! I hated that damn song, too, Meg!