Laura Florand

To be clear, every single star in that rating goes to Laura Florand's story. I didn't even finish Deirdre Martin's, and while Christie Ridgway's tale was readable, I found myself restraining the occasional violent urge toward her hero and heroine.

But Laura Florand's story...bestill my heart, man. Beautiful, evocative writing. Likable, and flawed, protagonists. The magic of Paris (which I'm generally indifferent about) and chocolate (which I am never indifferent about). A sexy, decadent, utterly charming story. Seriously: it is entirely possible that time stopped whilst I read it. I will definitely be reading the others in her Amour et Chocolat series.… (mere)

Maybe Romance (as a genre) just isn't for me, but I liked this book more than some. It took quite a bit of the story for the whimsy to work on me, but eventually it got through. And I now want to eat so many sweets I can hardly stand it. Let me say first, that I can think of many people I would recommend this book to. Just because I didn't love doesn't mean that i think no one should. There is a lot to love here. I do, though, have some issues with the story.

For one, holy exposition. Sometimes it would take an entire page (and then some) for one character to reply to something another character had said. It just made me think, what is the other character doing while all of this interior monologue is happening? Standing there gaping? I love a snappy dialogue, and it just didn't materialize here.

Second, sometimes I just could not deal with the word choices. There is a lot of whimsy and wit in the writing, and then I run across a whole bunch of "butt" and "my sex" and even a "tummy." And then there was the phrase (well, I'm paraphrasing), "He squeezed my sex as he might squeeze a lime." Is that in there for humor? Because I laughed.

Third, and perhaps the main problem I had, there seem to be a lot of subtle references to this man "forcing" himself in what should be safe spaces for this woman. I use the quotation marks because I don't think it is meant to be taken as malicious. But malicious intent or not, I find some of the hero's behavior troubling. The heroine often finds him close enough to her that they inadvertently touch, and he doesn't back away to give her space. He does this purposefully to "annoy" her. In one scene he, essentially, breaks into her apartment when she isn't there, and doesn't leave when asked. In fact, he realizes and exploits the fact that she won't ask him to leave a second time (out of pride, I guess?). I have a problem with that. I know not everyone does, but I do. And because of that, I can never really allow him to be my prince charming. And isn't that what we want a romance novel to do?… (mere)