Kimani, $7.99, ISBN 978-1-335-47099-7
Contemporary Romance, 2019
A Tiara for Christmas is the final entry in Carolyn Hector’s Once Upon a Tiara series, although the Kimani line going toes-up may have something to do with the series coming to an end. Just saying.
I realize I can’t recall anything about previous entries in this series, aside from maybe them having “tiara” in the title, so it’s a good thing that this one stands alone well enough for me to keep up just fine.
A year or so ago Kimber Reyes lost out on a plum internship offer because they wanted her to fill in for a news coverage ASAP and she’s busy being filled instead by our hero Dario Crowne. When she finally saw all the missed text messages, oops. Anyway, that incident only underscored, in her mind, how she shouldn’t shackle herself to him any longer, as she always wanted to leave their small town of Southwood to be a prime career woman, and the hero will only hold her back.
Dario, on the other hand, believes that she dumped him because he made her miss an internship with a plum company, and he doesn’t understand why she might hold a grudge as she got another plum gig shortly after.
When they meet again, he makes her miss her flight back to their hometown. You know, I’m really starting to not blame Kimber for wanting nothing to do with him.
She’s back in town to track down the mysterious designer of gorgeous pageant tiaras in the neighborhood, and Dario decides to, er, Crowne her with joy while deliberately keeping her from finding out that he’s the tiara person she is looking for.
Why does he do this? Beats me, but that’s my reaction to most of this story. The characters’ motivations often don’t make sense. They often feel or do certain things just for plot purposes, often to prolong the story as much as possible, and nothing much about them feels organic.
Also, the author spends a lot of time with what seems like misdirection.
Oh, the opening chapter sees Kimber missing a plum gig because she just happened to have sex with the hero at the wrong time! This seems to be building up to something… but it just fizzles out because nobody seems to care much about that.
Dario worries that his lie may ruin his budding relationship with Kimber so… ooh… wait for it… wait… okay, she finds out and the whole thing is a big whatever.
Dario’s sister hates Kimber because every Kimani story needs some woman getting all bitter and hateful to the heroine for some reason, and it seems like this offal is plotting something. Surely, there will be a grand confrontation, a screaming match, or something. Oh wait, again this whole arc leads to a big nothing burger,
What is the author doing? It is one thing to subvert my expectations, as a round-headed twit loves to say, but this isn’t subversion. Rather, it is raising my hopes up, repeatedly, that something exciting may happen, only to pop my expectation like taking a pin to a balloon. Sure, this story is readable, so it’s not like that balloon is filled with swill that spew all over me when it’s popped, so to speak, but the story ends up taking me to a duller place than I anticipated.
The “fun” of the story, as it is, stems from the main characters doing childish things, often with him having an upper hand over her because she’s too soggy for his horny to put up much of a fight. Because of this, Dario is never challenged in any serious manner. He doesn’t have to be responsible, because in the end, his immature attitude about love and life gets him the girl, so case closed. Kimber says she never wants to settle down and be a family woman, but a few rides on that pony and she’s all yes, yes, more.
Yes, this is also tied up to that foiled expectation subversion thing. Early on, the heroine makes a big case about wanting to focus on her career and how she feels that Dario is too easy-going and reckless when it comes to responsibilities to be a good match for her. Oh, this will lead to some good character development, right? No. The hero is loaded and hung, and that’s all to make her get all cross-eyed in ecstasy and see things his way.
I don’t know. There is just something way off with the way this story is structured. I often feel like the author wanted to do something with this story, then abruptly changed her mind a little later and took her story somewhere else, and then changed her mind again, et cetera. The characters never feel cohesive or coherent, and the story doesn’t have a clear direction or focus for the most part.
In the end, I just can’t fully get into this one. It feels more like a draft that is still a round of polish, or maybe two, away from being the real deal.
