LynneC’s review of The Devil and Miss Jones by Kate Walker
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents 3 Apr 12
Kate Walker excels at presenting the attraction between a man and a woman, but while I enjoyed this book, I wanted more. It reads more like extracts from a book than a proper story, and some elements are banished from the page in favour of concentrating on the changing emotions between the two main characters.
Carlos meets Martha on a deserted country road. He’s on his motorbike, and she’s hitching a lift in her wedding dress. It reminds me a little of the beginning of Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ Natural Born Charmer, except, of course, Blue is wearing a beaver suit, not a wedding dress (as you do).
It’s a great beginning, and a perfect example of revealing backstory through character and action. Walker lets us wonder what she’s doing there, but doesn’t keep the reader in suspense for an annoying length of time, just enough to pique the interest. She uses point of view to help create this, only moving to Carlos later, when he is created for us as the gorgeous man of mystery. Books that start with a hero staring at a resume or a heroine sitting in a plush office, pondering on how she got there are put to shame by this beginning.
Carlos gives her a lift, and they end up in bed together at a small town hotel. Of course, this being a Presents, Carlos is a millionaire, but he has suffered a trauma and he’s trying to find himself a new future. Martha doesn’t know he’s wealthy, and he doesn’t know she has money too, having recently won the lottery (that’s in the first chapter, so not a spoiler, fear ye not). It’s a night out of time for them both, but Carlos spoils it by his ungentle reaction to sex that stirs his soul, and Martha thinks she’ll never see him again. It’s a hot encounter, and we feel, like Martha does, that she’s lucked onto something good.
After that lies spoilers. Actually, the blurb contains what I’d consider a spoiler, so if you don’t want to be spoiled anymore, don’t read it. Walker’s strength is in character, not in plot, and the book reads like extracts. There are important scenes that I’d loved to have read, but the word length of this line being strict, and this book being even shorter than some I’ve read recently, there wasn’t room for them.
The first act is the hotel room, the second is in Argentina, having skipped months and a bit of plot, and the third – well, it’s worth reading it to find out. But the bits in between the big acts are missing, and I do miss them. I know it’s important to keep the emotional connection moving and, my goodness, Walker does this in spades, but I want more, I don’t know, meat, I suppose. More about Martha and Carlos, what they did, what made them the people they are. I want to see Martha’s faithless groom get his come-uppance, to see Martha get a sexier man than he could ever be, not just hear about it off the page.
I did root for them and like them both. Carlos is a deliciously damaged hero, but not a jerk, and Martha is sweet and innocent, but not stupid. I like that aspect of them both. This is two people in a vacuum of their own, with only one memorable other character briefly sketched in, so I don’t feel for Carlos and the reason for his leaving in the first place is only explained and resolved off the page.
Still, this book is a great example of how to do chemistry and connection right and make it believable, and, as always, Ms. Walker’s style is immaculate. Maybe I’m just greedy to want more.
Grade: B-
Summary:
Caught in his inferno…Martha Jones has never taken a risk in her whole life. Until the day she runs out on her wedding and succumbs to the magnetism of a man she has only just met! A man she knows only as Diablo…Lone wolf Carlos Ortega won’t promise Miss Jones more than one searing-hot night. Yet Carlos is shocked by Martha’s sweet innocence. This runaway bride is a virgin, and it seems the repercussions of their sizzling encounter could last for ever…
Read an excerpt.
