An Affair to Remember

The first book in the "Tailsman Ring" series. I loved the premise of "whoever has the ring falls in love" plot. It's great! I am a fan of Hawkins already, and have mostly read her newer stuff.. so I am now making my way through her backlist. This book was fun. Great humour, chemistry, and some wonderfully stubborn lead characters which made for fiery confrontations. As I haven't read this series before.. I am already hoping she has written or plans to write, a story for the eldest child Desford. I enjoyed his character and think he'd make a strong Lead. I am looking forward to the rest of the series.

Original Review posted: http://paragraphsandpetticoats.blogspot.ca/2015/01/an-affair-to-remember-by-kare...

I hated this book. I should have gotten from the title that it would be full of cheaters...but by ignoring the glaring clues I am not gritting my teeth and wondering what I was thinking. Made it 91% of the way before deciding I could not tolerate another second.

situational-humor, verbal-humor, family-dynamics, friendship, erotica, romance, happy-ending*****

Five resentful orphans, an overbearing Earl, a no-nonsense Society Lady turned governess and her interfering father: what could possibly go wrong? It's a powder keg fueled by attraction and humor! Loved it ten years ago and still do.

Well I finished this just to remind myself that this author isn’t for me. I read almost seventy percent not really liking any of the characters but figured I’d gotten that far because it was slowly rocking along. But then I skim read the rest which went off the rails with devious plots that I think I was supposed to enjoy. And I really didn’t see how Anthony and Anna even fell in love as they both bugged me to no end.

I mean, add a group of kids to any story and I'm going to read it. This is more of a 2.5er, but it's on the 2.56 rather than 2.53 side of that equation, so I'm giving it 3. As always, one has to be realistic about what to expect out of a romance novel but the intrigue all happened within the last 15 pages and wasn't terribly intriguing and the villain wasn't much of a villain and then things got a little dub-con-y on and off.

I didn't hate it, but I definitely had a host of quibbles.

The storyline was (predictable but) ok. I guess I read this to take a break from mysteries. It was pleasant enough but the characters were rather thin. Their whole development was in their reputations. They were what they were because she said so. Mischievious, domineering, irresponsible...but little example was given to support the acusations. The children did some naughty things, but they went from devil spawn to angels with little for the reader to go on except being told they were better. I would have liked to have been given more evidence to come to that conclusion for myself. It is supposedly the first of the series (even if it is a sequel to Seducing Sara...see, more you just have to take her word on) so maybe the rest of the show more series is better developed. I felt a bit like I was reading the author's notes instead of the finished novel. ("Tricia becomes more agreeable...children become more cooperative...Ruppert becomes redeemable...) show less

A great start to this series about five brothers. Their mother left them a talisman ring which is supposed to unite the owner with their true love...the brothers keep trying give it to each other because they don't want to be married but someone ends up with it and sparks fly.