Saturday Review: The Next Best Thing

The Next Best Thing

By Kristan Higgins

Publisher: Harlequin HQN

Release Date: August 27, 2013

(reissue of February 2010 release)

Lucy Lang is the youngest widow in a family in which being widowed young has become a family tradition. Her grandmother was widowed young, and her mother and two aunts, Rose and Iris, are known in Mackerly, Rhode Island, as the Black Widows, a nickname that plays on their maiden name (Hungarian Fekete translated into English as Black) and references the fact that they were all widowed before they turned fifty. Lucy’s husband, Jimmy Mirabelli, died in an automobile accident before they celebrated their first anniversary. More than five years later, Lucy still has not really moved on with her life. She has the training and the talent to make her one-time dream of becoming an award-winning pastry chef a reality, but she has given up that dream to become the bread expert in Bunny’s, the family bakery where her mother and aunts work. She creates desserts for classes she teaches and for friends and family, but she can’t eat them herself because they taste like ashes.

Ethan Mirabelli is the younger brother of Jimmy. He and Lucy are long-time friends. In fact, it was he who introduced Lucy to Jimmy. In the months following Jimmy’s death, Ethan was her rock, the only one who seemed to understand the intensity of Lucy’s grief. A couple of years earlier, the friendship that had sustained Lucy through her most difficult days added another dimension. Lucy and Ethan became lovers. She trusts Ethan to understand that their friendship with benefits doesn’t change her feelings for Jimmy. In fact, it doesn’t even slow down the frequency of her re-viewing her wedding video or enable her to visit Jimmy’s grave. Ethan, who has been in love with Lucy forever, is endlessly patient and nurturing, trusting that in time Lucy will let go of her grief and realize what the two of them share.

When Lucy’s younger sister Corinne gives birth to a daughter, Lucy is made aware of how much she longs for children of her own. So great is this longing that Lucy decides she will reject the family pattern of remaining a widow and look for a second husband. Her primary criterion is that he be a nice guy for whom she will feel a tepid affection but who will not inspire the kind of all-encompassing love that she felt for Jimmy. Such a relationship will provide a father for her children but will not affect Jimmy’s status as her One True Love or put her heart at risk for another shattering. Her new plan requited that she end the benefits stage of her friendship with Ethan, but she is unprepared for how great the loss will be when Ethan accepts her decision by distancing himself from her or for how troubling she finds the idea of Ethan with another woman.

Like all of Kristan Higgins’s books, The Next Best Thing is eminently readable with characters who are believable and generally likeable, family dynamics that are charged with loyalties, friction, twists, and quirks, and humor balanced with some darker emotions. The ethnic references to Lucy’s Hungarian ancestry and to the Mirabelli’s Italian heritage add color and seasoning to the mix. Her trademark animal companion plays a less prominent role than is sometimes the case, but Fat Mickey, the curmudgeonly cat who was a gift to Lucy from Ethan, will surely have his admirers. Lucy’s desserts are so scrumptious that I’m persuaded the descriptions alone sent my scale edging up several pounds.

Despite all these reasons for liking The Next Best Thing, it is still not one of my favorites among Kristan Higgins books. I reread it with the hope that returning to it after seeing Lucy and Ethan’s HEA in process in the second Mackerly book, Somebody to Love (2012), would give me a greater appreciation for it. It didn’t. Lucy still impresses me as neurotic, her epiphany about Ethan’s role in her life still seems too late, and I still worry that Ethan deserves more. I remain an ardent Kristan Higgins fan, but I will reserve my unreserved raves for other Higgins books. Stay tuned for bells and balloons when I review her October release, The Perfect Match, in a few weeks.

Are you ever disappointed in a book from a favorite author? I make a distinction between a disappointing book, one in which I see clear strengths but that still fails to reach the standard I expect from the author, and a book that is either a failure or a Did Not Finish. Do you make such a distinction?

Miss Buncle's Book: Vintage Romance

Miss Buncle’s Book

By D. E. Stevenson

Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark

Release Date: September 1, 2012

When Barbara Buncle’s dependable dividends suddenly become less dependable in the early 1930s, she needs to add to her income. She rejects keeping hens because they are “such fluttery things,” and she rejects paying guests because Dorcas, her cook/maid/parlor maid/friend who used to be her nurse, didn’t like the idea. The only thing left for a diffident, middle-aged spinster to do is to write a book--and she does. Since she believes she can write only what she knows, she writes about Silverstream, the small English village where she has lived for all of her life, and its inhabitants. She sends Chronicles of an English Village to Abbott & Spicer because they are first in an alphabetical list of publishers.

Arthur Abbott, like all publishers, is in search of a bestseller. He doesn’t have much hope that he’s found one when his nephew Sam, newly employed by the firm, gives him a manuscript with the pedestrian title Chronicles of an English Village written by John Smith. But Sam’s insistence that “the feller who wrote this book is either a genius or an imbecile” persuades him to read it. He reads it twice. He concludes that Sam was wrong.

It was not written by a genius, of course, neither was it the babblings of an imbecile; but the author of it was either a very clever man writing with his tongue in his cheek, or else a very simple person writing in all good faith.

Either way Abbott decides he may have his bestseller, and he sends a request that John Smith pay a visit to the office of Abbott & Spicer to discuss their buying his book. He’s rather charmed when “John Smith” turns out to be the naïve, devastatingly honest Miss Barbara Buncle whose blue eyes and good teeth are all she has to rate her as physically attractive for a woman of her years.

Abbott &Spicer publish the book with a change in title. Chronicles of an English Village becomes Disturber of the Peace, and Disturber of the Peace becomes a bestseller. Those hens Miss Buncle decided not to keep could scarcely have had more ruffled feathers than the villagers of Silverstream when they discover themselves in the book. There are threats of legal action, demands that the book be pulled from bookstores, and plans to horsewhip John Smith when his identity is revealed. No one suspects that the reviled author is the self-effacing Barbara Buncle who is busily taking notes for a sequel, but both Miss Buncle and Mr. Abbott realize that if the villagers don’t find out who John Smith is before the sequel is published, they will certainly have their answer then. 

The first romances written for adults I ever read were my mother’s books, all of them written before the romance revolution of the 1970s. I loved those “gentle romances” and devoured all that my mother owned and all I could find on the shelves of the local library. The novels of D. E. Stevenson were among my favorites. They were written decades before I read them as a preteen, but they had a warmth and a charm that kept me searching for more of them. I was delighted when I saw that Sourcebooks Landmark was reissuing Miss Buncle’s Book, originally published in 1934. Rereading it, I easily understood why Stevenson’s books sold three million copies in the United States.

Barbara Buncle is not the typical romance heroine. She’s older, she’s dowdy, and she’s about as far removed from a “kick-ass heroine” as one can imagine. She provokes laughter, but it’s affectionate laughter, and she moves the reader to sympathy as well. Her problems are real. When Mr. Abbott gives her a hundred pounds as an advance, she signs the receipt with tears in her eyes.

It really was rather astonishing (when you come to think of it) what that tiny piece of paper represented—far more than a hundred sovereigns (although in modern finance less). It represented food and drink to Barbara Buncle, and, perhaps, a new winter coat and hat; but above all, freedom from that nightmare of worry, and sleep, and a quiet mind.

I loved the description of her reaction to the reviews of her book, and seeing the HEA of a character who never even dreamed of one was immensely satisfying.

The cast of secondary characters is large, quirky and memorable. There are some a reader will dislike intensely because she recognizes them, although they may dress differently and speak with a different accent: the domineering, hypocritical Mrs. Featherstone-Hogg; the controlling emotionally abusive Mr. Bulmer; and the cunning, gold digging Vivien Greensleeves. But they are balanced by the hard-working Dr. Walker, still wildly in live with his pretty, intelligent wife; the good-hearted, if misguided, vicar, Ernest Hathaway; and the lively, impulsive Sally Carter. And Stevenson gives her readers three romances—four, if we count the good doctor’s love for his beloved Sarah.

I highly recommend this for readers of sweet romances. But I also recommend it for those who would like a change of pace, are looking for something light and amusing, or find appealing the promise of a book that has the charm of vintage photographs and the comfort of a hug.  I hope that Sourcebook follows up with Miss Buncle Married (1936) and The Two Mrs. Abbots (1943), but I can’t wait. I put them on hold at my library. 

Sourcebooks also reissued Georgette Heyer’s romances and mysteries, the electronic editions of which are on sale for $2.99 each through August 20 in celebration of Heyer’s birthday. I love the idea of making vintage romances available to modern readers. Are there older romances you’d like to see reissued? What do you think makes the difference between enduring appeal and hopelessly dated?

Tuesday Review: The Last Good Man

The Last Good Man

By Kathleen Eagle

Publisher: Bell Bridge Books

Release Date: May 1, 2012 (reissue of 2000 release)

Savannah Stephens couldn’t wait to leave Sunbonnet, Wyoming, for a larger, more sophisticated world, and her beauty and ambition earned her the success of which she’d dreamed. But now her years as a famous lingerie model are behind her, her money is gone, and Savannah’s options have narrowed to one. She has returned to Sunbonnet and the aunt who raised her after Savannah’s mother died of breast cancer. Savannah is recovering from the same disease. The scars reconstructive surgery left on her body are less significant than the wounds to her spirit. Savannah’s sense of worth was based on her face and her body. The changes in her body make her feel as if she has lost what made her, and she’s spiraling deeper into depression now that she’s back in Sunbonnet where her aunt can help care for Claudia, the six-year-old daughter whom Savannah feels is the only thing of value left in her life.

Clay Keogh has been in love with Savannah since they were kids tagging after his older half-brother, Kole Kills Crow, a Native American activist and suspected terrorist and murderer who has been on the run for years. Clay knew that the young Savannah had a crush on Kole, but he’s not prepared to see his brother’s features stamped on the face of a precocious six-year-old. But Clay loves his brother, and it only takes a few minutes for the child to earn her own place in his heart, a large part of which her mother already owns.  It is Clay who refuses to let Savannah stay in hiding. Although their first reunion takes place under cover of darkness in an old haunt of theirs, Clay pushes Savannah back into the light. It is he who insists she see a doctor for follow-up care. He marries her, accepting her conditions, so that he can take care of her at his ranch, the Lazy K. But Savannah will not allow Clay to touch her scars, those on her body or those in her heart, and Clay is convinced that Savannah will leave Sunbonnet, the Lazy K, and him as soon as she is healthy.

Kathleen Eagle is a superb storyteller who creates compelling, complex characters, and The Last Good Man is one of her best books. It has lost none of its power in the dozen years since it was first published.  Eagle’s gift for characterization can be seen in the secondary characters such as Clay’s mother, his ex-wife, Savannah’s aunt, and Savannah’s hairdresser friend—credible mixes of strengths and weaknesses with pieces of the lives that make them who they are revealed. Even characters who never actually appear in the book such as Kole Kills Crow and Savannah’s New York friend Heather emerge as real, believable personalities. Claudia may seem improbably mature to some readers, but anyone who has ever watched a small child of a single parent caught in physical or mental illness will recognize the fierce protectiveness and caretaking that can become part of the child’s nature.

Clay is wonderful, one of my all-time favorite heroes. Hardworking, competent, sexy, and nurturing with an always tender touch for the wounded and needy, human or animal, he is the man the title evokes. But he is no impossible dream. He can be angry and impatient, he can make foolish choices, and he can find it difficult to articulate his feelings. Eagle reveals enough about his past for the reader to understand that his need to take care of others is an essential and innate part of the person Clay is. Like many natural givers, Clay must learn to accept the gifts of others.

Savannah, despite her illness, is a difficult character to like for the first part of the book. She is totally self-absorbed, even to the point of avoiding her responsibilities to her child. But as the reader learns more about her and realizes why appearance is so important to her, why the changes cancer surgery have wrought in her body have so devastated her, and why she is convinced that she holds death within her, she becomes more sympathetic. Watching her grow and take responsibility for herself and others becomes a joy.

Kathleen Eagle is a gifted, intelligent writer. I highly recommend her books. If you are an Eagle fan, you know her books are definitely worth a reread. If you’ve never read her, The Last Good Man is a great place to start. I suggest you also look for You Never Can Tell, the story of Kole Kills Crow and Savannah’s friend, New York journalist Heather Reardon, which Bell Bridge Books also plans to reissue. And I’m hoping for reissues including electronic editions of my favorites by Eagle—Reason to Believe and What the Heart Knows.

What’s the last book you reread? What golden oldies would you most like to see reissued?

The Last Good Man is available for free download May 17 and 18 at Amazon.