CBR17 Book 70: "In a Second" by Kate Canterbary

Page count: 505 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

This was an ARC from the author. I am very grateful, but my opinions are my own. 

Audrey Saunders has not seen her former boyfriend, Jude Bellessi, since he showed up at the church, only moments before she was due to get married, to ask her to run away with him instead. Because of a whole host of reasons, Audrey couldn't tell Jude why she was getting married, and why she broke up with him in the first place and moved across the country. About a decade later, she certainly didn't expect him to show up at their high school reunion, but there he is, larger than life and handsomer than ever.

While once he was the motorcycle-driving bad boy her parents disapproved of, now Jude is an aerospace engineer and single dad, trying to gain sole custody of his son (it's complicated). He is attending the reunion because he needs a pretty big favour from Audrey, and figures she owes him for the way their relationship crashed and burned all those years ago. Jude's mother was dying of cancer, and he may have lied a whole lot and claimed that he and Audrey were not only happily reunited, but were due to get married. Of course, now Jude's mum is fully recovered and delighted that she will get to plan her son's wedding to the woman he couldn't forget.

Matrimony did not work out for Audrey, and she has no intention of ever getting married again. She does feel like she has a debt to repay, however, so she agrees to play fake fiancée to Jude for a week. After that, she never needs to see Jude again, and she'll go celebrate one of her best friends' weddings. Jude plans to wait a couple of months, then he will tell his mother that they broke up, and that will be that. Neither of them had taken into account flight cancellations, a cross-country road trip, or being trapped in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, in the most depressing motel room you could possibly imagine - which obviously only has one bed. 

This is the third book in the Friendship, Rhode Island series, which all have heroes and heroines who have to go through a fake engagement for complicated reasons. Jamie, who is both one of Audrey's best friends and also a fellow teacher, just laughs hysterically at how optimistic Audrey is about this being a brief transaction, after which she and Jude will never see each other again. By now, it's quite clear that fake engagement equals an eventual happy ever after for all of these women (who all became friends because they worked at the same school). 

All of the books in this series are long; it is very rare that a romance needs to be longer than 400 pages. I thought the plot dragged out for too long in In a Jam, and I thought the plot dragged out too long in this one, too. I understand that there is a whole lot of angst to get through on both Audrey and Jude's part. One of the reasons the book is clearly so long is that Canterbary seems to want the readers to not only get the main romance, but also time to reconnect with characters from previous books. Which is fine, but I'm not sure we needed as much of it as here, and I'm not sure I would care for it much if this was the first book in the series that I picked up. I also don't know if we needed as many complications and obstacles thrown in their way as Audrey and Jude have.

Going forward, I'm now very curious whether Canterbary intends to write a romance starring Jamie, who seems very attachment-averse and keeps taking part in polyamorous orgies. She doesn't seem like the sort of person who will want to settle down with one (or several) people, but I would love to be surprised. What I want most of all right now, and the author seems to be heavily setting up for, is a book about Ruth, one of the sisters of Ryan from In a Rush. She's a prominent supporting character in this one, and has clearly got up to some shenanigans which may lead to a HEA eventually. 

Judging a book by its cover: This is my favourite of the Friendship, Rhode Island covers so far. It doesn't hurt that it's pretty much all shades of purple. The violets are a lovely touch, once it becomes clear what the colour and flower mean to Audrey. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR17 Book 69: "The Song of Achilles" by Madeline Miller

Page count: 369 pages

Audio book length: 11 hrs 15 mins

Rating: 4 stars

Nowhere Book Bingo 25: Reimagining or retelling of a classic

CBR17 Pie Chart Challenge: History

Patroclus is exiled from his father's kingdom after he accidentally kills a boy and is sent into fosterage with King Peleus. Here is where he meets Achilles, whose mother is the sea nymph Thetis. Achilles is supposed to become the greatest warrior who ever lived, and trains diligently to achieve this goal. While they are vastly different, Patroclus and Achilles become sworn companions, and Patroclus accompanies Achilles to train with the legendary centaur Chiron.

The boys stay with Chiron for several years, until they become young men. Their bond deepens, and they become lovers. Unfortunately, their pastoral life is cut short. Helen, rumoured to be the most beautiful woman in the world, has been abducted by Prince Paris of Troy. All the kingdoms of Greece are oath-sworn to accompany King Agamemnon and Menelaus to rescue her. Thetis takes her son and attempts to hide him away in a distant kingdom, since there is a prophecy that if he faces Prince Hector of Troy on the battlefield, he will die. However, Achilles is tracked down and seduced by the chance to fulfil his destiny. He can't become the greatest warrior ever if he doesn't go to Troy. He figures he'll just stay away from Hector, and then he can't be killed.

The quick and decisive victory the Greeks were expecting instead becomes a gruelling siege that lasts over a decade. Agamemnon, the leader of the Greeks, grows ever more resentful of Achilles, who refuses to show him the respect he believes he is owed. The tension and conflict between them keep escalating, eventually ending in tragedy. Prophecies can only be evaded for so long before the gods decide to manipulate matters to end as they have been foretold. 

Ok, fair warning, I'm not going to spoiler tag a myth that is literally thousands of years old. If you don't know the story of Achilles and how and why he eventually met his tragic end, that's really not on me. They even made a big movie starring many hunky men! Of course, in that one, Patroclus is Achilles' "cousin", and they give our dashing hero a female love interest and everything. No homo when you're Brad Pitt. Suffice it to say, in this book, which is frequently found in the top ten of banned books every year, Patroclus and Achilles are NOT cousins. They come of age together, yes, but they are in no way related, and their feelings for one another are most definitely romantic and sexual. Pretty sure no one would bother banning this book if they were just cousins and bros, happily seducing the various priestesses they captured as prizes of war. 

Having finally read this, which I have owned for oh so many years, I won't say that I was disappointed, because it is a very well-written book, but neither was I swept away by the story. Since Patroclus is the narrator of the book, I was idly curious whether he would keep narrating from the afterlife (turns out, I was right!). This is a good book, but I had read so much about how it had people in floods of tears. I felt no such emotions, probably because I knew when I started the book how it would end. Miller's other mythological novel, Circe, affected me much more strongly. I should re-read that and The Odyssey before Christopher Nolan's movie comes out next year. 

Judging a book by its cover: The cover for my audiobook is this fairly simple teal green one, with a golden Greek helmet on it. I much prefer it to the alternate cover with the big shiny golden breastplate. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read