Sandy M’s review of If the Shoe Fits (Royal Series, Book 2) by Megan Mulry
Contemporary Romance published by Sourcebooks Casablanca 2 Jul 13
I’ve been telling myself for a couple of months now that I want to try a new author or two in the stack of books sitting here, so Megan Mulry is the first of those. I think I made a really good choice.
Though this is the second book in the series – a series that doesn’t have a name yet that I can tell, so I gave it one! – and as much as I wish I’d read A Royal Pain first, you don’t need to. This story stands on its own, while you still get the sense of the previous characters and what they went through earlier. I like the modern-day royalty angle too.
It’s those characters, Max and Bronte, who bring Devon and Sarah together. Max is the nineteenth Duke of Northrop, and his marriage to Bron is imminent. So Devon, the groom’s brother, and Sarah, the bride’s best friend, are standing up for the couple. There’s an immediate attraction, which leads to the bedroom. Sarah is determined to get rid of her virginity – men have been off her radar while trying to gain her father’s attention for years and then starting her own business of shoe design, which dad isn’t impressed with so far. Devon is a player, loves women and enjoys them all the time. So hopping into bed with Sarah is just up his alley, but when she’s the one to label this all a fling and the one to walk away come Monday morning, he’s not sure why that bothers him.
The attraction, the passion, the lust is palpable between them. Ms. Mulry does a good job of getting those feelings off the page, but when it comes to the loving itself, she stops short. The lovemaking isn’t all it can be. At least for me. Those scenes are short and not that descriptive, all throughout the book. More time is given to Sarah backpedaling now and again in the relationship. She wants to do everything on her own, things are moving too fast, Devon isn’t who she thinks he should be – always an excuse for her to become angry and waltz out. I want longer scenes including all that passion we read about leading up to them.
The book doesn’t actually start for me until the week after their first night together. After the slow drag of following each of them through their separate lives for that week, Devon makes the trip from London to Chicago, an ongoing job with his architectural firm the excuse he needs to get there, to see Sarah – he’s thought of nothing but her during this time. The moment he comes face to face with her again, in the open doorway of her store, he pulls her into his arms, and the story takes off. Even if Sarah does her waltzing out the very next day. Their attraction definitely confirmed, they can’t keep their hands off one another, even when angry. Sarah still has her doubts after they come back together, but she stays with Devon while in London overseeing the construction of her new boutique.
In the midst of all this, Devon has innocently discovered someone is colluding to sell Sarah’s shoe designs to China, so he keeps track of his findings to share with Sarah when he has something more concrete. Of course, you can see the outcome of this a mile away. I hoped for a different resolution, though, but it’s the same you get in most every romance to break the couple apart for a bit. This one especially doesn’t work for me, because the last-minute machinations going on are simply unnecessary, almost like filler at the end of the book to make the required word count or pages. I totally agree with Bronte’s resolution, one Sarah later wishes she’d done.
Ms. Mulry has a tendency to use $10 words when a fifty-cent counterpart would work just the same. I don’t have the time to run to the dictionary for definitions for some of those expensive words, and I shouldn’t have to in a romance novel. This isn’t rocket science. She does, however, write very likeable characters. I enjoyed every one in this story, especially Devon, his mother, and Sarah’s grandmother. The look into modern-day royalty is fun, and this is a family with quite colorful characters. The beginning of the romance for Eliot and Abigail starts here, and I’m looking forward to that story. They’re very different and much the same, just as all of the leading characters in this series, and I believe a good time will be found with them when their book releases in November.
Grade: C+
Summary:
Second in a sexy, playful new series of women’s fiction imagining what it might be like for a modern American woman to fall in love with a British aristocrat, from new author Megan Mulry.
Sarah James is an accomplished American woman who heads her own chic shoe company. Devon Heyworth is the rakish, ne’er-do-well younger brother of the 19th Duke of Northrop. When the two meet at the Duke’s wedding they embark on a whirlwind weekend romance. And what begins as a casual fling at a royal wedding quickly proves to be far more meaningful. But when a string of misunderstandings threaten to tear them apart, their meddling aristocratic relatives join forces to reunite the star-crossed lovers.
No excerpt available.
Other books in this series:
R is for Rebel – November 2013
