by Julia Quinn, 373 pagesMiranda has known she's been in love with Turner (he hates his given name, Nigel) since the day she met him, back when she was nine and he nineteen. Years have passed, as has his disastrous marriage to a heartless cheat, but Miranda can't seem to get him out of her heart, despite the sad change a hard life has wrought in him. Can she bring back the Turner she first knew and, this time, keep him for her own?
This is an earlier companion title to Quinn's What Happens in London, but I don't think it holds together quite as well. The main characters read somewhat inconsistently and not as clearly defined individual personalities. And while there is a lot of snappy dialogue, it doesn't necessarily feel like it belongs to the individual speakers nor does it always come off as appropriate to the situation. This one perhaps tries a little too hard to be melodramatic and witty at the same time, making it a little manic instead of pleasantly complex (What Happens in London just lumps all the melodrama at the beginning and end, so the middle holds together better and makes up for it--not a perfect solution, but an improvement, nonetheless). I think the story outline itself is fine, but for whatever reason its execution just doesn't work for me.
Maybe Quinn is working the bugs out and honing her characters and style as she goes along? If so, I'm looking forward to reading the latest in the series just to see if its main character, Sebastian, is as complex and colorful as he promises to be from the glimpses we get in WHiL.
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