Lawson’s May 2007 review of Sugar Daddy by Lisa Kleypas
Contemporary romance released by St. Martin’s hardcover 6 Mar 07, mmppb 4 Mar 08
Texas: The land of big hair, big oil and big drama. Kleypas brings us a new writing style and a contemporary story in Sugar Daddy.
Liberty Jones doesn’t have much going for her. She lives in a trailer park with her mother. She’s half Hispanic, and when her mother ends up pregnant, she neglects her school work to help care for her new sister. When her mother suddenly dies, she’s forced to grow up fast and raise her sister as a mother as well as adapt to living in big, bad Houston instead of her hometown of Welcome, Texas.
Liberty also has to forget about her childhood love Hardy Cates, the one boy who was always there to help, but that she could never be with. When he leaves town for his own dreams, Liberty is heartbroken and struggles with her changes in life. Even as she pines for Hardy in her new life in Houston she gets involved with a billionaire who everyone assumes is her sugar daddy, though they forge a lasting friendship.
The story is told in first person, which is hard to do in a romance. Liberty’s voice and tone grow with her over the course of the story, she starts out at fourteen and the book covers the next ten years of her life. She’s observant and willing to change and adapt to her circumstances, which is a good trait to have when your life suddenly changes.
As a born and bred Texan myself though there where parts that were a bit clichéd. The trailer park, living in Houston, the billionaire gets his money through oil, and some of the phrases which are touted as “Texan” are things that I haven’t heard. But then I avoid Houston like the plague, and they could be more known there than my slice of the Lone Star State.
The two men Liberty falls in love with are strong, believable Texan men, and her choice at the end doesn’t perhaps fit well with the rest of the story, but I feel that she chose the right one in the end. It would have been nice to have more time with Liberty to get to understand her choice a bit better, but everything works out well enough.
Grade: B-
From the back cover:
SHE’S FROM THE WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS. Liberty Jones has dreams and determination that will take her far away from Welcome, Texas—if she can keep her wild heart from ruling her mind. Hardy Cates sees Liberty as completely off-limits. His own ambitions are bigger than Welcome, and Liberty Jones is a complication he doesn’t need. But something magical and potent draws them to each other, in a dangerous attraction that is stronger than both of them.
HE’S THE ONE MAN SHE CAN’T HAVE. When Hardy leaves town to pursue his plans, Liberty finds herself alone with a young sister to raise. Soon Liberty finds herself under the spell of a billionaire tycoon—a Sugar Daddy, one might say. But the relationship goes deeper than people think, and Liberty begins to discover secrets about her own family’s past.
WILL THEY FIND THEIR HEARTS’ DESIRES OR WILL HEARTBREAK TEAR THEM APART? Two men. One woman. A choice that can make her or break her. A woman you’ll root for every step of the way. A love story you’ll never forget.Read an excerpt.
I’m surprised that you don’t get to know the character when the book is told in first person. However, this shows the limitation of first person storytelling, in my opinion. You only get the one person’s version of events and people. That’s just too limiting in romance. After all, romance is a relationship between more than one person.
I don’t know why – maybe because I’d been reading a bunch of angsty, dark, ponderously paranormal stuff before I picked up Sugar Daddy. But found it really fun and refreshing. I blew through it and stayed up way past my bed time to finish it.
Heh, I did too, it was an easy read, but I felt the end was rather abrupt.