Lynne Connolly’s review of Rafael’s Suitable Bride by Cathy Williams
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents/Mills and Boon Modern 1 Mar 09
I usually enjoy Cathy Williams’ books, but in this one I found too many dissonances to fully enter into it. It’s a good story that’s been shoehorned into the Presents/Modern line.
Rafael is a businessman perfectly happy with his bimbos, and then his mother introduces him to Cristina, who comes from a similarly wealthy Italian family. But Cristina is a dumpy brunette, where Rafael prefers willowy blondes. And he doesn’t want a wife, he wants an affair. At least the word “mistress” is kept mainly at bay.
So let’s start with Rafael and Cristina. Rafael is the typical tycoon, except that his business is kept deliberately vague and he spends much more time driving up and down from the Lake District, which is a gruelling drive, visiting his mother. And Cristina has a flower shop, a fairly successful one. Rafael’s character is lightly and confusingly drawn. Every now and then the author remembers he’s an alpha, and provides him with suitable alpha behavior, but I liked him better as the thoughtful man, who called up his ex girlfriend to invite her to a party because he was worried about her. The alpha who wanted to keep his heart separate from his marriage didn’t really ring true for me.
Cristina annoyed me. Although she had a successful floristry business, she seemed too dim to really make it work. Time and again she failed to see what was under her nose, and her lack of understanding of Rafael makes me think that this marriage is headed for the rocks, despite the saccharine epilogue that, frankly, out-sweeted most of the sugary endings. Sad to say, I didn’t believe it for a minute.
And Rafael and Cristina don’t behave or speak like Italians, not even the stereotypical ones. On one hand, I’m pleased, but a spell at an English boarding school doesn’t turn an Italian into a Briton. I’d have been much happier if Rafael and Cristina were Ralph and Christine, and I don’t understand why they weren’t. The action of the story takes place in England, and neither character yearns for Italy or its manners, countryside and glories. I get the feeling that their nationality was in a way imposed on the story after it was written.
Now for the bits of the plot that didn’t altogether make me happy. At the beginning of the story Rafael is heading up to the Lake District. In the snow. He chose to drive instead of taking the train, and he chose to take his Ferrari instead of his Bentley. We’re supposed to believe that he made it up there with no trouble. Snow and the Lake District is a beautiful combination, but I’ve been there in better weather, and a Ferrari just wouldn’t cut it. It’s a stupid decision, not a brave or a quirky one. You need a Range Rover. The Bentley would have been better than the sports car. It’s not as if you can go fast in the Lake District, not with the twisty mountanous roads that are the norm once you get off the motorway. So instead of being amused, I just thought Rafael was stupid. And all this to-ing and fro-ing made me wonder why Williams hadn’t sited Rafael’s mother’s home in Hampshire, or somewhere a bit closer.
Cristina is the typical ditzy type who has more sense than at first she seems to have. Or so we’re told. She wears the baggy clothes that make her look fat, but underneath, she’s curvy. Are you groaning yet? Give me strength, I thought, but I read on. Yes, later in the story she gets with the plunging necklines and short skirts. Turns into the bimbo Rafael likes. And the career she loves so much? Set aside for babies and husband, although, thankfully, not totally abandoned. And she constantly misunderstands Rafael, doesn’t see into the inner man and doesn’t care.
The sex was, frankly, disappointing. After some delightful foreplay scenes, the sex went by in a flurry of purple prose and flat statements. “they made love” isn’t enough to describe the moment Cristina gives up her virginity. It’s over in a sentence or two of vague description. “It was glorious” doesn’t cut it for this reader, at least. I was reminded of a writing class I went to, where the lecturer told us we have to fulfill our promises. So if we say the heroine is a virgin, and she’s chosen to give it to this man, and it’s a momentous decision, we should share a little more in the scene and the experience. It was as if Williams chickened out. Either do it or don’t, and don’t give us the foreplay without the sex.
Although Williams has an appealing style and some parts of the story made me smile, others fell flat. One scene where Rafael wears Cristina’s pink dressing gown and his boxers should, I felt, have been supremely romantic, and another, just before the black moment, seemed to lack in focus. I’d give this one a D, and go on to the next Williams. Because, as I said, I usually enjoy her books.
Grade: D
Summary:
Billionaire Rafael Rocchi always has a woman in his bed, but never in his heart.
Now he needs a suitable wife…
When he meets Cristina, she is an ideal candidate: her plain-Jane looks mean she won-t be tempted to stray — and she’s a virgin!
Cristina is devastated to learn that Rafael-s proposal was one of convenience. But whilst Rafael makes it clear their marriage isn’t based on love, he intends for it to be authentic in every other respect…No excerpt found.
