May had some great reading, but I got all Goldilocks with the romantic fiction I digested this month.
The Jane Austen Society series has been a welcome addition to my reading as steady, bright novels that are well-written and provide pure enjoyment. The latest addition is Austen at Sea and it’s about the two daughters of a state Supreme Court Justice who establish a correspondence with Frances Austen, Jane’s only surviving sibling. He invites them to visit so they take a steamship to England. There is intrigue in the guise of a reporter and two booksellers all of whom have a motive behind their trip. This is the late 1800s, after the Civil War and the suffragette movement was in full swing so the historical aspects of the novel and the characters who were real from the times provide the meat of the novel, but the romantic plots started to outweigh all else leaving me feeling the series has run its course.
Storybook Ending centers around three protagonists and one letter. April is in tech and works from home for a real estate site. Laura is a widow with a young daughter and works as a personal shopper for a local high-end department store. Westley is the handsome guy working at their favorite book store. April has a tremendous crush on him and decides to reach out the old-fashioned way by leaving a note in a book on his desk. A book that he hurriedly hands to Laura when she comes in looking for a copy. The two women inadvertently begin corresponding through letters left in a specified location in the store and Westley is left clueless.
First of all, this was fun because I was mentally replacing the business names from the story with the real local companies such as Nordstroms for the dept store and either Zillow or Redfin for the real estate sites. The book store is Third Place Books—one of my favorite stores here.
The plot line is charming even if I can’t remember the last time I wrote a letter. On the emotional side McDonald aptly conveys the loneliness the two women feel. April, for working from home and becoming more socially awkward even as she’d desperately like more people in her life, and Laura for whom trying to raise her daughter and stay afloat financially takes all her time.
The problem for me was Westley, who is presented as good looking enough that he’s never had to try for anything in life and just goes with whatever falls into his lap. He’s a bit shy, but mostly he comes across as a doofus. I had no patience for him after his second chapter in the book because it was rinse and repeat of the same drivel.
I wanted more Laura and April and less Westley, but that aside this was a fast, light spring read.
As you see rom-com can be hit or miss for me so I’m thrilled to end with a novel that was just right. Abigail and Alexa Save the Wedding, a romantic comedy that flipped the script. Penny and Chase are a dream couple—ambitious, hardworking New Yorkers who know what they want including very specific details for their wedding. Unfortunately, their mothers have completely different weddings in mind.
Abigail, the groom’s mother, is tremendously proud of her family’s heritage: basically, she’s a WASP and she stings. Finding out that her precious son is marrying a fatherless Greek girl with a career is not good news. She wants the wedding at their family home to showcase the wealth they no longer have. The mother of the bride, Alexa, is not so thrilled either. She’s a successful luxury travel planner living in an elite CA community. She doesn’t believe in marriage, raised Penny on her own, and had hoped she would follow in her footsteps and choose a less traditional life.
This could so easily get completely campy (ala Jane Fonda in Monster-in-Law), but Dolan opts not to play into the women-fighting-women trope. While in the beginning each has internal dialogues about the other’s unsuitability or inadequacies, both Alexa and Abigail refrain from over-the-top dramatics or scheming.
Right now, when everything feels heavy there’s something to be said for reading that is light and bright. Abigail and Alexa has no deep message or underlying theme. It’s simply reading that fills you up rather than empties you out. There’s no agitation in the story even when things don’t go as planned. Instead, it left me nothing but happy and glad I’d read it. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
How about you? What kind of Goldilocks rom-com reader are you? Does your taste change?
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*I received a free copy of these books from the publishers in exchange for an honest review.*
I just suggested Abigail and Alexa to my library so hopefully they order it.
This is a great round up. The Jane Austen series is peaking my interest!!