LynneC’s review of The Dark Side of Desire by Julia James
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents 19 Jun 11
Julia James has written some great books, full of the angst and passion that the Modern/Presents line is famed for. Her output has always been patchy, ranging from absorbing to horrific, when she takes themes, take them as far as they can go and ends up with a hot mess. This book is neither of those. It reads as if she phoned it in.
Leon, the hero, sees Flavia at a party that her father is holding. She is dressed beautifully, and he immediately classifies her as a spoiled daughter. Without even talking to her. What a prince. We get sentences like this: “Probingly, his dark eyes lanced through the throng, seeking its target.” I don’t want to think about what my editor would do with that. We have the confusion of “eyes” being referred to as “its,” and “probingly”? Really? I mean, you have to read on after that. When he sees her, he assesses her as if she’s a package, put there for his delectation. Of course, he’s right. Flavia’s father is a boorish businessman who wants to attract Leon for a deal, and he is throwing his daughter at him.
Flavia’s father is portrayed as without virtue and ignorant, as well as having a mercenary mistress. Flavia’s condemnation of them says more about her snobbery than it does her father as a character, and we end up with an unbelievable stock villain. He is threatening to sell the manor house that Flavia inherited from her mother, and this is the reason she goes along with him and appears at his dinners and parties. Oh yes, and she has a sick grandmother with dementia.
So she ignores Leon. Leon pursues, asks her for dates and her father insists she goes. She behaves so badly to him for no reason that I couldn’t understand why Leon would bother to pursue her. He’s presented as a woman magnet, a powerful and wealthy man, so why would he bother with a pretty but rude woman who won’t even have a decent conversation with him and walks away from him the first moment she gets?
I didn’t warm to Flavia at all. She condemns Leon because her father wants her to like him, and although he seems perfectly pleasant, she is rude to him for no reason. Stupid as well, because she’s attracted to him. Hey, he likes you, he’s rich, he can help you with your grandmother. Not that he has the privilege of knowing about her at first. She tries to look as plain as she can, so again, why would he bother? Flavia is also a snob.
You get the picture. Her father threatens, her grandmother gets more ill, and she gives in and reluctantly sleeps with Leon. And then blames him for it. At first.
If I’ve said little about the character of Leon, that’s because he doesn’t have a character. He’s the object, and he’s given a few bits of backstory to give him motivation. But he smoulders predictably, boinks like a god, and does wonderful things to her. In fact, he’s so thinly delineated, put him sideways and you’d miss him. We are asked to believe that he is a philanthropist, investing in third-world countries at ground level, avoiding the corrupt governments. If Bob Geldof couldn’t manage it, I don’t see how a businessman could.
Flavia isn’t much better. She’s insufferably rude in the first half and pretty miserable in the second. I didn’t care about either of them.
There is a fair bit of backstory just dropped like a brick into parts of the story, stopping any momentum dead. Sometimes point-of-view switches are so rapid, they can make you feel like you’re at Centre Court in Wimbledon. The story is told with a predictability that had me yawning.
There are some typos that should have been picked up, too, like “principle” for “principal,” and “flare” for “flair.” Word repetition, especially the same words close together, made for a disjointed read. I noticed because it’s something I’m prone to when I write, but I have great editors who pick it up. It’s something most authors do and just don’t notice. I can only conclude that the editing for this book isn’t as thorough as it could have been.
James’s legions of fans are buying and enjoying her work, but she’s going to have to do better to attract new readers. I save F grades for books that are so bad nothing else will do or books that make me angry. This did neither. It only bored me.
Grade: D
Summary:
English rose Flavia Lassiter has never been comfortable in her father’s glitzy world. Summoned to yet another of his ostentatiously lavish parties, she finds that her one order is to be “nice” to a wealthy investor. Her body may be on offer, but she shields her heart behind an icy shell.
Leon Maranz emanates a dark power that sends shivers through her body—threatening to shatter her frosty facade. To let the self-made billionaire bed her would be to do her unscrupulous father’s bidding. But to turn Leon down would be to deny her body’s deepest desires….
Read an excerpt.
