LynneC’s review of Caught in the Spotlight by Jules Bennett
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Desire 6 Mar 12
Jules Bennett is a Desire writer of some standing. She’s been writing for the Harlequin Desire line for a number of years and understands the tropes perfectly. The heroes are the usual alpha males but without the hard edge you sometimes find in a Presents. They have a more modern outlook, don’t expect their heroines to be prisoners of the kitchen. The heroines are often a little older, nearer thirty than twenty, and more independent, more likely to answer their heroes back. This book contains all that and more. So why didn’t I like it better?
Bronson is a film producer, the hottest in Hollywood, and the son of one of the queens of the film acting profession, Olivia. The heroine, Mia, works as Olivia’s PA, and she and Bronson fall for each other during the Cannes film festival, when he uses her as a kind of heterosexual beard – to keep the ravening hordes of predatory females away. They have one night, and several weeks later, back in Hollywood, Mia finds out she’s pregnant. She tells Bronson because he has a right to know, not because she expects him to do anything. I like that, I do think the father of a child has the right to know. In any case, she can sue the pants off him for maintenance after the child is born, especially with DNA testing to prove paternity beyond doubt. Not that sweet Mia intends to do that, even if Bronson turns his back on her. She’s too sweet for that.
That’s one of my problems. Mia is, basically, a Presents heroine. She nurtures. She loves to cook, looks after Olivia and her needs, doesn’t have any ambitions for herself. I don’t know why. In fact, I don’t know a great deal about Mia and what makes her tick. I do know that she is keeping a secret from Bronson – that his chief rival and someone he dislikes for having an affair with his ex-wife, Anthony, is really Bronson’s half-brother from an affair Olivia had when she was on the brink of stardom. But Anthony, who used to be Mia’s boss, asked her not to tell anyone.
So I don’t even mind her keeping the secret from Bronson, because it isn’t her secret to tell. I do mind her constant angsting about it and the way she doesn’t call Anthony to ask his permission to tell Bronson. Even when Anthony realizes that Bronson and Mia are an item, she doesn’t ask him. Although lip-service is paid to Mia’s independence and feistiness, she actually has very little. She instantly decides to keep the baby, cries in Olivia’s arms, and takes Bronson back as a lover. What finally finishes her for me is the inevitable “this is only for sex, I can’t love you” spiel that Bronson spins her.
I am getting heartily tired of this trope. It seems like a favorite trope is adopted by Harlequin writers and then goes into overdrive. So we have a spate of secret babies, then a bunch of Big Misunderstandings, and now it’s the I Can’t Give You Anything But Sex, Baby line. The men are emotional cripples who won’t give emotion but find the little woman winning them over anyway. Basically, they are cowardly jerks, not my idea of heroes at all.
Bronson is no exception. He wants her, he takes her, he thinks it’s fair to tell her that he can’t love her because a woman done him down once. What a jerk. He won’t even try. She wins him over despite his desire to keep separate. At least he accepts responsibility for the baby. Eventually. He starts by demanding a DNA test, which Mia reluctantly says he can have once the baby is born. So she’s a jerk, too. Because he’s a Hollywood hotshot and someone did this to him before. It makes him a jerk, but it makes Mia as stupid as a lump of sugar. She’s been around Hollywood types for a while now and she doesn’t understand the pressures they’re under?
I bought a new hard drive for my computer a couple of weeks ago. It arrived well packed. Very well packed. I swear, Bronson had more cardboard than the new hard drive came packed in. He does what he does for the plot. I never feel particularly as if I understand him, and the old “my wife betrayed me” thing is never explored, never made real, just used as an excuse.
If the whole Anthony subplot is ditched, then it might have given Bronson and Mia a bit more room to develop as real people, to give the tropes room to breathe. Because using tried and true isn’t the problem, it’s that they aren’t used to make Bronson and Mia into real people to make the reader care.
My last irritation is the confusion of tenses. Bennett uses “that’s” and “it’s” when she really means “that was” or “it was.” She even uses two tenses in the same sentence, moving from present tense to past. It happens so much in this book that it is a real distraction and I found myself looking for more of them, rather than sinking into the story.
Presumably Anthony and his wife Charlotte are heading for a sequel. I doubt I’ll follow them there. Sorry.
Grade: D
Summary:
A True Hollywood Love Story?Who’s the exotic beauty on the arm of mega-hot ladies’ man Bronson Dane? Word is she’s Mia Spinelli, recently rumored to be the mistress of her former boss—and Bronson’s longtime industry rival. Now she’s the personal assistant to Bronson’s mother. Is Mia getting “personal” with Bronson, too? He’s been spotted escorting her into a Hollywood doctor’s office, and Mia has a noticeable baby bump. Has the sultry assistant managed to get under the playboy producer’s skin—and into his bed?Read an excerpt. (scroll down)
