LynneC’s review of The Divorce Party by Jennifer Hayward
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents Sep 13
I wanted so much to like this book, but it ended up being a meh forgettable story with a lack of attention to detail that was at times irritating. The central couple are out of the Modern/Presents stock cupboard and never, for me, rose above the ordinary. But it is a polished read and it doesn’t do anything to infuriate or annoy me, so I made it to the end. On the whole, I think a lacklustre debut, but one that should ensure Ms. Hayward a future in category romance.
The idea is an interesting one. A party to celebrate a divorce. Except the divorce hasn’t yet happened, so the initial premise is a bit of a head-scratcher. It’s a ploy to pull Lilly back to Riccardo, so he can get her back. The heroine’s name annoys me, because every time it came up I kept thinking it’s spelled wrong. But maybe it is short for something else. I don’t know. Come to that, it’s Riccardo, and not the more usual Ricardo. Maybe Ms. Hayward just likes double consonants? We all have our quirks.
It doesn’t annoy me enough for me to stop reading and keeping an open mind. The hero wants the heroine back because he still loves her, but his extremely feeble and unbelievable excuse was that his father wanted him to present a more stable image to the board. Since when have boards of directors cared about the moral or otherwise lives of their members? Only results matter in that world. That’s one trop I wish would be put to bed.
Lilly, who was supposed to love him, finds him in a compromising situation and doesn’t want to believe him. Doesn’t give him the benefit of the doubt. However, Ms. Hayward makes a good job of describing the initial passion that sweeps two people from disparate backgrounds into marriage, so I could just about go with that. Except it doesn’t make Lilly look good. Lilly has found someone more suitable, Harry Taylor, but even she finds him boring, and there’s no indication that they are sleeping together, so Harry is more a plot device than a real person.
Lilly has another reason for accepting Riccardo’s proposition for a temporary reconciliation – her sister is ill with leukaemia and she needs the money for the treatment. Sigh. You get this even in British-set Modern romances, where treatment for leukemia is free, unless you want something wacky and weird. I can understand, with the high cost of medical treatment in the States, this being used so often as a plot device, but the martyr heroine, however well explained, rarely does anything for me except make me wonder why this is worthy of what is a prostitution exercise (money for sex) and why something in the heroine’s makeup isn’t.
I know one reason for the continued martyr trope. I knew the late Penny Jordan quite well, and Penny had her own special reasons for writing in tropes about selflessness and sacrifice. When she wrote her martyr heroines, they were part of her and her reasons for writing, and IMO it shows. Penny wasn’t only a prolific author for Mills and Boon, she was a great teacher of writing and a mentor for new writers, so her influence stretched far and wide. (I miss her a lot).
But fortunately the Sick Sister is soon left behind, and Lilly and Riccardo are happily exploring their carnal side. The story progresses in the expected way, with neither character standing out from their tropes, and you end up with a forgettable read that slots easily into the category line assigned to it. That might seem like damning with faint praise, but it’s not. I’ve long expressed admiration for authors who can work with tropes and work their way into them effectively. I think in time Ms. Hayward could prove to be one of those. If she writes from the heart.
There are a few places in the book that make me wonder what the editor was doing. A few sentences and things that don’t make sense. A sentence like:
“He’d seen racing as a frivolous, ego-boosting activity that pandered to his son’s ego “
Made me go “huh?”
Then Lilly tells Riccardo that she gave her fabulous designer wardrobe to charity, not to mention throwing a fifty-thousand-dollar engagement ring off the Brooklyn Bridge. If she needs money for her sister’s life-changing treatment, why on earth didn’t she sell the ring and the clothes? The market for designer originals is extremely lucrative and she could have avoided the whole divorce party thing completely.
She treats the nice Harry like dirt – ignores his phone calls, doesn’t tell him what’s going on. Harry doesn’t deserve that. Sequel bait is duly dangled.
And there’s a plot development halfway through that does annoy me, and seems to be dropped in more to provide extra conflict than to study the consequences of a very debilitating and distressing condition. If you use something as contentious as the problem Lilly suddenly tells Riccardo she has, then a little more foreshadowing than her looking in the mirror and not seeing a fat woman is needed. It affects the heart and soul of a person and it can last a lifetime.
So there we go. Not memorable, but a reasonable airport read, as long as you don’t mind the problems brought up by Lilly’s extra complication, which appears so late it would be a spoiler to reveal it completely.
Grade: C-
Summary:
“You threw your fifty-thousand-dollar engagement ring off the Brooklyn Bridge?”
Lilly shows up to her lavish divorce party with one goal in mind—to leave as quickly as possible minus a husband! Except he has other plans…and Riccardo De Campo isn’t easy to say “no” to.
Forced back into Riccardo’s glittering, gossip-fueled world, the price of perfection is still too high and Lilly’s old insecurities resurface. An unexpected consequence of their reunion raises the stakes even higher, and the media’s golden couple must finally confront the truth behind the headlines.
Congratulations to Jennifer Hayward, winner of Harlequin’s 2012 So You Think You Can Write competition!
Read an excerpt.
