Jove, $7.99, ISBN 978-0-515-15148-0
Paranormal Romance, 2014 (Reissue)
Did you catch Chris Pratt’s acceptance speech during some meaningless MTV award thing that happened just a while ago? I think he’s now propelled into my list of top five Hollywood actors fit to kiss my hand, because baby, while I’m agnostic, the fact that we have, in a time when it’s cool to be cynical, atheist, and anti-military, this guy getting up on stage and manage to get a room full of hypocrites cheering him on as he talks about the simplicity of prayer, the beauty of imperfection, and the sacrifices made to keep us free… there is something so noble and sweet about this that I just melt inside. Okay, maybe his PA wrote that speech, but the delivery is all his, and it’s so well done, I actually choke up a bit when he gets to points number eight and nine.
What? This book? Oh, right. Sigh. This month, the theme of the TBR Review Challenge is “comfort read”. Well, these last few weeks, real life has been a pile-up of stress, eye-rolling nonsense in the local politics scene, and other unnecessary drama, so I know what I need to do to get such a read. Now, this is going to sound really petty, but trust me, I’m sincere when I say that a Nora Roberts story is exactly the kind of comfort I need – it’s going to be something competently written, of course, but it will also be so formulaic that there is no risk of getting even a little surprised along the way. The characters will be perfect, the romance will be a snooze, and the scenery will be described with more passion than the romance itself – so, I fully expect The Last Boyfriend will be, at best, a pleasant read to escape into and, at worst, something that will at least give me a good sleep by page thirty or so. Either way, I win.
And that’s what I get in this one, so I can’t complain really. As the second entry in Nora Roberts’s self-celebratory series The Inn Boonsboro Trilogy, which I understand is to be based on her own environments and there is even a Nora character here, this one takes off from The Next Always. The inn is about to be opened, the couple from that other book is getting married, there is still that ghost thing that is still here to be the hook for the next book, and there’s the perfect hero courting the heroine whose only angst is that she isn’t really sure that the hot, handsome, understanding, gallant, filthy rich man with parents who adore her and can’t wait to see her get penetrated by their son is the one. Oh baby, if only we all have such a serious problem in life.
The bulk of the story focuses on how awesome everything and everyone is. Seriously, that’s what this story is. When the author is not telling me how hot the hero is, she is telling me that the heroine is just as hot.
The red hair, milk-white skin, and dash of freckles might declare her Scot heritage, but her marinara was as gloriously Italian as an Armani suit. He’d often wondered where she’d gotten the knack, and the drive, but both seemed as innate a part of her as her big, bold, blue eyes.
So beautiful, just beautiful. I have to stand up and clap.
Everyone talks about how beautiful and awesome the inn is shaping up to be. Everyone talks about how amazing the scenery is, and how wonderful it is that the whole thing is populated by such magnificent people that like one another. I keep waiting for them all to partner up, hold hands, and skip around town while kicking up their legs, as the dead ghost screeches the chorus of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing to all these munificence of blessings in motion. I remember that I paid money for this book ages ago, but try to cheer myself up by telling myself that perhaps even a sliver of these characters’ conflict-free perfect life will rub off on me and I too will wake up one day, magically transported into this beautiful world where I am Nora Roberts’s neighbor, I can sell artistic erotic art while waving at the adoring crowd outside my window, and Chris Pratt will come up in a magnificent white steed only to fall down on one knee and ask me to give him a good spanking while wearing that sexy studded leather bustier that he likes so much on me.
Uh… yeah.
There is a powerful force that designed you that way and if you’re willing to accept that, you will have grace. And grace is a gift. And like the freedom we enjoy in this country, that grace was paid for with somebody else’s blood. Do not forget it.
Amen, Star-Lord. Ah-freaking-men. He can just tell me if he wants me to register as a Republican, sweetheart, because with the poetry behind those words, he can tell me to eat a phone book and I just won’t care. Because he’s so fabulous and baby. Baby.
Uh… yeah. This book. Yeah. Alright then.
