Loveswept, $2.75, ISBN 0-553-44150-7
Contemporary Romance, 1991
Terry Lawrence’s In the Still of the Night was published in the 1990s, and it feels more like a product of the 1980s in terms of the stereotypical behaviors and thought processes of the hero and the heroine.
In other words, people expecting present day sensibilities from something published in 1991 may be better off reading something published in the, well, present day.
Carolina Palmer returns to her hometown of Grelickville, Louisiana to look into something about her late grandmother’s affairs that perplex her deeply: a piece of land had been given to a charismatic preacher. Our heroine is convinced that Reverend Shepherd is some kind of con that must had surely swindled her grandmother.
I’d say: one look at his name and I’m pretty sure that he’s indeed a con man. Then again, who knows. This is a romance novel; romance heroines are more often than not wrong in their assumptions.
Anyway, she finds an ally in her late grandmother’s hot lawyer Brad Lavalier, and don’t worry, he’s not old or anything icky like that. Instead, he predictably has a hot body, a flat stomach, and a fat bank account, woo hoo!
Okay, this story. The whole thing about Reverend Shepherd feels perfunctory and unimportant. He’s an excuse for the heroine to do what she does best here: whine about her horrible life… except, it isn’t really horrible at all, so the reader will have to decide for themselves just how much of Carolina’s me-me-me drama is worth sitting through to get to the happy ending.
Seriously, we have a hot heroine without any financial issues wandering around acting like her life has been the worst. Why is it so bad? Because it’s not perfect, that’s why!
Carolina also constantly moves goalposts so that Brad will always disappoint her, all the while moping that love sucks, et cetera.
Hence, that dingbat fills the pages of this story gazing into her navel and whining about how she can’t love, she can’t love anyone, she can’t love Brad, oh wait, maybe she does, but she thinks she’s not up to loving someone, okay, she loves Brad now, but he doesn’t seem to love her 300% back so maybe she shouldn’t love him, but oh, she loves him… this creature is so tedious to behold.
Perhaps it won’t be so bad had she been damaged inside in some way due to some trauma, but instead, she just springs fully grown into this story right at the first page just to act like the most self-absorbed whine machine. I’m not sure why I’m supposed to empathize with Carolina, as she doesn’t really do anything but whine on top of the fact that she just loves to whine for the sake of whining.
Oh, and I did mention some stuff that may not be acceptable by present-day political correctness police, and most of that is concentrated in Brad. From the moment he sees Carolina, he decides that she’s someone in need of a man’s love. His love, of course. The hero spends quite a bit of time here making some sweeping assumptions about the heroine just because she’s a woman and he knows all the worst stereotypes associated with her sex, and I can imagine some readers cringing at such antics of his.
I’d cringe too, mind you, because the author is laying the whole Brad is a manly man thing way too thick here for my liking… had not for Carolina demonstrating that she’s quite useless on her own, and hence, the guy is 100% right about her.
Some relics of the old days could be fun to read in a “So horrible, it’s so awesome!” way, but this one is just morose and fun-free due to the heroine’s personality, her grating need to make herself a victim 24/7, and her being complete wet rag from start to finish. It may have some value for collectors, I suppose, but story itself is quite disposable.
