France - More Books than Time

Charlotte Lamb said once that she could write a book a month, and with that pace a few duds will slip in along with her many stellar stories. Dangerous (paid ad) is a romance between Laura, a nurse chaperoning a resentful, rebellious 16 year old daughter of a very rich man, and that man Domenicos.

Charlotte Lamb tends to take her time and word count to build strong secondary characters, in Dangerous she writes a good, believable story about Laura and Amanda. Amanda starts to grow up and leave behind rebellion for rebellion’s sake, mostly because Laura is wisely indulges her on small things and lets Amanda to meet the boy she likes under the aegis of her grandmother.

Dangerous has side stories: Amanda grows up, Domenicos begins to know her, Domenicos relationship with his mother, Laura’s friendship with Marcel, the uncle of the boy Amanda wants to date. Lamb does a nice job sketching in these stories, enough to keep us interested in the characters, but she doesn’t actually tie off the loose ends.

My biggest disappointment is the romance between Laura and Domenicos is not believable. Domenicos despises women in general and Laura fascinates him because she is honest, does not chase him nor play games and she obviously cares for Amanda and his mother. Plus she’s attractive and radiates innocence. Laura finds Domenicos attractive and she enjoys the time they spend together but she’s sensible enough to be wary of him and not want an affair.

So why do they end up planning to marry? Would Domenicos, a brilliant businessman whose first marriage was a disaster and who doesn’t trust anyone, truly propose after just a month or less, probably less than 24 hours total spent with Laura? I don’t think so. Laura thinks he is propositioning her when he does propose (he words it that way) yet she is willing to risk all for a few moments of joy. It doesn’t ring true to me.

I did not get emotionally involved with any of the characters nor engaged with the story. It was a book I could put down and pick up a day later.

Overall Dangerous is a decent read, well-written with plenty of scenes in and around Paris, with well-done secondary characters. It is meant to be a romance and on that level it doesn’t rate above a skimpy 3 stars. I didn’t love the story, or the characters nor did I get so irritated that I wanted to whack them over the head with a 2×4. (I give 5s for books that engage me to the point where I fume about the jerky hero for days after reading.)

I got my copy of Dangerous from Thriftbooks. Amazon has used copies as of this writing and you likely will find copies on eBay and other used book sites.

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Sara Craven tends to write stories where the primary conflict is in the heroine’s head, when she convinces herself that although she is deeply in love, the hero does not and never can love her, and therefore she faces a lifetime of misery. Usually she protects herself by acting as though she cares little, or that the attraction is physical only.

Sometimes this theme happens after marriage, marriage to take care of a child (Devil and the Deep Sea), a coerced marriage for financial/business reasons (Wife Against Her Will, The Marriage Proposition), even when the marriage was ostensibly for love (His Wedding Night Heir). In Solitaire (link is paid ad) her agony of the heart happens during courtship, when Martine leaves her aunt’s house to go to her older cousin, Uncle Jim, in France and discovers Jim is dead and film director Luc Dumaris owns his house now. Martine is not sophisticated but she’s wise enough to realize that there is no future for her with Luc.

Unfortunately she falls for Luc despite telling herself over and over to stop. For the moment she is stuck in his house because she hasn’t enough money to leave (nor anywhere to go since her aunt doesn’t want her back) and she works for him as a companion for his son to earn enough to return to England. She doesn’t see all that much of Luc but everytime they run into each other she is pulled deeper. Luc is likewise attracted and keeps grabbing Martine, kissing and caressing her and suggests they go upstairs to make love. Luc of course loves Martine but she doesn’t realize it and is reluctant to even suspect it.

This is where author Craven must be her strongest, to make such an implausible story work. Martine has zero experience of men and Luc is strong, masculine, successful, good looking, intelligent and fun to be with. In fact Martine spends very little time with Luc and is surprised to find he can be a delightful companion when he’s not kissing her senseless. Solitaire doesn’t show us anything about Luc’s feelings except through his actions, but it’s clear Luc is attracted to Martine physically but also to her integrity and innocence. He’s about 15 years older, an obvious target for her to have a huge crush.

Unfortunately Craven can’t quite pull this off. The romance is all too likely but it is hard to believe they love and are not simply attracted or infatuated or in love with love or with an ideal. The love story is not compelling.

One reason Solitaire falls just short is the sheer implausibility of the pairing, especially given the fact very young women tend to fall in and out of love until they finally are mature enough to love and not simply be in love. A second reason is that Craven doesn’t show us what Luc thinks. He avoids Martine and spends time with the older, more sophisticated other woman. We could infer that he avoids Martine because he’s attracted to her strongly and wants to play fair with such an innocent, or we could surmise that he’s not interested in her except physically and is decent enough to avoid that. If I were in Martine’s place I don’t think I would figure Luc feels love. Lust, yes. Definitely. But love is not evident in his behavior.

Craven shows us too much inside Martine, as she constantly agonizes over Luc and how he doesn’t/can’t love her. She is responsible and has integrity and wants to earn her wage, first by companioning Luc’s son and then by typing his manuscript. If Martine had been older or wiser she would have asked Luc just what was going on the first time he grabbed her and kissed her silly. He could have been leading up to an affair, or he could have been expressing frustration. Or he could have been showing love.

Had Martine been brave enough to confess her love to Luc, risking rejection or even worse, having him rush her into an affair without love, she would have seen that he did love her. Almost all of Craven’s heroines are cowards when it comes to saying “I love you”, and then they are lost in the woods because they have to wait for a crisis to prompt the man to say it. Since the ladies have spent almost 170 pages being aloof, it’s not too easy for the man to say it either.

Craven sometimes builds excellent characters, uses dialogue and actions to reveal them to us. Martine, Luc’s son Bernard, and Jean Paul, the student working at a local café who dates Martine are quite well developed and we can feel like we might recognize them if we were to meet. Luc is an enigma. We know Martine by her verbal dialogue and her inner thoughts, and I feel Craven uses far too many internal monologues to set the stage and show us Martine.

Overall Solitaire is a solid 3+ stars, not quite 4 but certainly worth reading. I got my paperback copy from Thriftbooks and you might see copies on eBay or other used book sites. Amazon has copies available as I write this. The Open Library at Archive.org does not have Solitaire yet.

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Dangerous Charlotte Lamb Romance Harlequin Presents

Solitaire by Sara Craven