LynneC’s review of The Return of her Past by Lindsay Armstrong
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents 18 Jun 13
There are DNF books, but I think there ought to be another category—WTF books. This is definitely a WTF.
Mia has been living and working in a house she’s renting from a couple of old ladies on a yearly basis. Her business, entertainment and wedding hire, depends on the house, so you’d think she’d have a contingency plan in place, to save the business should the house be unavailable. Nope. Mia is not a clever girl. She seems to have fallen into the business, which she likes because she loves the house. She isn’t too passionate about her career, but she does get it right. So she’s going with what she’s good at. Fine.
When Mia was eighteen, the youth she had a crush on, the charmingly named Carlos O’Connor, had an accident and got what could have been a concussion. So she took him into her little cottage, cuddled and kissed him, and slept with him (literally). Didn’t think to call for help, then is very hurt when Carlos’s mother finds them together and calls for medical help for her son. Like I said, not very bright.
Carlos is a sweetie. Considerate and caring, and much of the reason I carried on with this book is for Carlos. He’s made a fortune doing Stuff. Some Presents heroes make their money doing something they are very passionate about, and some do Stuff. I’m happy to go along with either. It doesn’t feature highly in this book, apart from giving him a reason to leave at crucial points and making him rich enough to ride to Mia’s rescue. There are very few scenes from Carlos’s point of view, and they are very uninformative.
Mia left for university before she saw Carlos again, and this created a very mild misunderstanding that has kept them apart for seven years. That and Life. But when they meet again, at the wedding of Carlos’s sister, which Mia has arranged, it’s on again. There are sparks and heated glances and Chemistry—that sacred something that in contemporaries takes the place of the Mating Instinct in paranormals. They nearly get at it, when Carlos realizes that Mia is a virgin. He’s just split from his model girlfriend, who then takes up with his dastardly enemy. The enemy is so dastardly that he paid for the abortion of his then girlfriend. That part left a nasty taste in my mouth.
“Oh, yes. She was devastated and guilt-ridden over the abortion and she tried to end it all.”
Really? Then why have one? It’s not indicated that Dastardly made her do it, just that he paid for it. Maybe he didn’t want it. But this abortion thing in Harlequin Presents? Stop it, please. I really dislike it, and for that alone it would have earned the fail mark.
But what really did it? The sex scene. Finally, Carlos and Mia realize they want each other, and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t do it. Despite Mia being a virgin and all.
So here’s the sex scene:
He took her hand and touched the side of her face, then pushed her hair behind her ears. ‘With you, Mia. With you if you’ll have me.’
She took a breath and a faint smile curved her lips. ‘Just as well it’s only across the road then,’ she said serenely.
* * *
‘I like the way you do that,’ Mia murmured.
She was lying naked across the king-sized bed and her body was afire with his touch as he left no part of her unexplored.
‘But I think I need to be held before I…I don’t know what, but something tempestuous is liable to happen to me, Carlos,’ she went on with a distinct wobble in her voice.
He laughed a little wickedly and took her in his arms. ‘How’s that?’
‘Oh, thanks.’ She wound her arms round him and kissed the strong tanned column of his neck. ‘You know, I can’t believe this.’
Neither can I. Believe it, I mean.
See those three asterisks? That’s the big deflowering sex scene, right there. It is followed by a brief paragraph of what you might call standard sex – narrative, nothing to indicate if it’s the first time or second, except it doesn’t hurt, and very bland.
Okay, here it is:
“Oh!” she gasped as he turned her onto her back and eased his body onto hers. And she was ready to welcome him so that in moments the rhythm of their lovemaking increased and there was absolutely nothing tame about the way they moved together and finally climaxed together—it was wild, wanton and wonderful.
Let’s get one thing straight. I’m fine with books with no sex scenes. I love Georgette Heyer’s books, and I’ve just given a book with no intimate scenes an A, so that’s not it. It’s when the scene is promised, when all the book so far is leading up to it and then we get – three asterisks. If the few lines is the taking of her virginity, or their first time, then it was terrible, the definition of anticlimax. I cry foul to the blurb. A few lying around chatting scenes, some cursory descriptions, but that’s all. Nothing to show why these two belong together. Or, worse, what the experience meant to either of them. Condoms? Who knows?
Either do it or don’t. Row or get out of the boat. Of course you can write a love story without sex scenes, but it has to be a different story. Not one that talks about virginity and chemistry and then doesn’t deliver. The whole point of the story is the attraction between Carlos and Mia. They don’t demonstrate it out of bed very well, so what’s implied in the bedroom? Totally doesn’t work. There are more descriptions of what they ate and what they were wearing than there are of their more intimate moments. And that gets annoying, too. I don’t care what she wears every time she goes out, but I get told.
There is no reason for these two to be apart. Come to that, there’s no reason for them to be together. With a sex scene or two, however vaguely described, the book might have worked up to a C, but with the hackneyed prose, the big holes in the development of the romance, the obsession with (boring) clothes and the weird and wonderful POV switches, it worked down to one of my very few F’s of the year.
I’m still left wondering “what happened?” And yes, I did finish it.
Grade: F
Summary:
Once is a mistake, twice is a habit!
Housekeeper’s daughter Mia Gardiner knew her feelings for multimillionaire Carlos O’Connor were foolish. Until the day she caught the ruthless playboy’s eye. Now Mia is older and wiser, but she has never forgotten the feel of his touch. Then, like a whirlwind, Carlos returns.…The girl he once knew is now a poised and sophisticated woman. Carlos is determined to rekindle their passionate past, but Mia’s reluctance fires his blood. Refusing to be denied, he has one last trick up his sleeve: he’ll save her ailing business in exchange for endless nights in his bed!
Read an excerpt.
