Journey

As I mentioned in my previous post, my daughter bought me this paperback for mother’s day this past year. It was prominently displayed at Target, and she saw that it was in the romance section. Also as I mentioned before, it turns out that the book is actually two books in one, both written in the 1980s.

Interestingly, this story was timeless enough there were only a few give-aways to the decade. Lack of cell phones/smart phones has definitely had a huge impact on the stories.

This one was better than the first of the two novels. It was an enjoyable afternoon read as long as I didn’t think too much. Certain plot holes were rather obvious after I put the book down, particularly relating to the custody battle over the heroine’s brother’s son.

Other than that, there was some decent chemistry with the characters. The heroine was far more fleshed out than the hero, and as such, I liked her a lot better. The steamy scenes were okay, but they aren’t the type I will reread to help my own writing.

The worst part was the sheer amount of head-hopping. Any character you come across you have the chance of seeing the story through their eyes. Even small incidental ones. This is a lot of head-hopping. In older, more established romance writers, you expected to see the scene through both the hero and heroine’s perspective. This was way beyond that.

All in, I don’t regret reading it, but I won’t read it again.

It did teach me a few things.

First, an external plot is really helpful. Having so much internal, “I am getting over my ex” going on, not augmented by something more, can make it difficult to relate to a character. It can also make it difficult to believe they have gotten over their ex.

Second, my favorite character in this was not the the usual serious and duty-driven one. All of the character building that went into the heroine who was driven more by emotion and living for the moment actually made me like her better. Unusual, but some key character driven elements, such as her compassion for her nephew, drew me to her.

Reminds me how important character development is, and it’s something Nora Roberts does very well in all of her work.

While I grew up reading Nora Roberts, and she was one of the authors that lured me into this genre, it has been many years since I have read one of her books.

My daughter bought me this paperback for mother’s day this past year. It was prominently displayed at Target, and she saw that it was in the romance section. While it might not be my usual fare, it was a thoughtful gift, and it delighted her to no end to see me reading it.

Honestly, though, that is about where the joy ended.

I kept waiting for the plot to come into focus. I am still not sure what it was other than the heroine being willing to accept who she was and that she could be loved. But even then, there was no real journey to that.

I don’t really have a lot to say about the story. The queen of romance wrote it, so I feel bad saying anything less than positive about it, but the story never gripped me. I never really understood why the characters were attracted to each other or what really kept them apart.

The steamy scenes didn’t make up for it either. And I’ll forgive almost anything for good steamy scenes.

There was also a lot of head-hopping. On one page, we saw the story through four different characters. This is even more head-hopping than you see in many older, more established romance writers where it was expected to see the scene through both the hero and heroine’s perspective.

All in, I don’t regret reading it, but I won’t read it again.

It did teach me a few things.

First, it is incredibly important to have real stakes for your characters. There has to be something keeping them apart. Yes, it can be internal, but a somewhat routine break-up from eight years ago needs a whole more to it.

Second, there has to be something in story that get the character over it. While this book has a happily-ever-after, I am not sure why I didn’t get in on page twenty rather than page two-hundred and seventy-four. Nothing all that much really seemed to happen to make the changes real.

A few things in the story made me pause, like the mention of phone booths and car phones. I checked the copyright date after I finished it. While the book A Touch of Sun was published in 2019, the story Mind Over Matter dates back to the 1980s.

Reminds me how much has changed in romance novels and technology over the last thirty-five years. I might stick to Nora Roberts’ more recent works.