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What Happens In London by Julia Quinn
Olivia Bevelstoke is ridiculously pretty and has gained a reputation for being overly picky when it comes to men, having rejected numerous suitors over the years. Harry Valentine is her mysterious new neighbor who always wears black. When Olivia’s friends tell her a rumor they’ve heard about him killing his fiancée, she thinks it’s ridiculous. She is, however, very bored, and as her bed room window just happens to have a good view of his study, she takes up spying on him to pass the time. Harry, who is bored silly, notices almost immediately, but decides to pretend he hasn’t so she’ll keep spying on him and he can do odd things to make her suspicious. Then he accidentally lets her find out that he knows, and they must (Horrors!) actually talk. Just when they’ve decided that they very much do not like each other at all (which doesn’t take long), Harry is asked to keep an eye on Olivia because one of her suitors, a Russian Prince, might be plotting against England.
The Sercret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever was the first Quinn I’d read in ages, and it was very uneven (as can happen when different parts of the book were written about a decade apart) so I’d forgotten how entertaining Quinn can be, even her her history really is about as window dressing as it comes. The conspiracy plot is odd and feels rather tacked on as an excuse to make Harry and Olivia interact more, but I don’t particularly mind. Olivia is fun and would much rather talk about politics and read the newspaper than read a novel, but tends to unintentionally get caught up acting like a gothic heroine. Harry is entertaining, but I’m not sure I actually liked him until he bought Olivia a gothic novel and then liked it more than she did. (He also comments that you can tell if a book is written by a man or a woman by whether or not the heroine dies, hich goes a long way to explaining my reading tendencies.)
Unfortunately, the book also sets up no less than five possible sequels. This is unfortunate not because it’s unusual for the genre (it’s the opposite, in fact), but because I found most of them to be considerably less-than-appealing. (The “next book” blurb confirms that Quinn’s next book will be about Sebastian, Harry’s best friend. I would have liked Sebastian if there hasn’t been a bit early on where he made his rival’s fiancée fall in love with him and then dumped her, presumably so the guy would be stuck with a woman who didn’t love him. Or so she’d jilt him. Regardless, it was supposed to make him the typical Fake Rake of romance novels but making him use a completely innocent woman for revenge, but just made him a loser to me. I will be satisfied only if the book reveals that she now writes gothics and has made Sebastian the villain in all her books. And a whole, whole lot of groveling.) There’s also a subplot about Harry’s angst regarding his father being an alcoholic. It’s built up a lot, but never really dealt with, resulting in an odd, unfinished feeling to the book. I suppose the real fallout from that is being saved for one of the inevitable sequels.
The Sercret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever was the first Quinn I’d read in ages, and it was very uneven (as can happen when different parts of the book were written about a decade apart) so I’d forgotten how entertaining Quinn can be, even her her history really is about as window dressing as it comes. The conspiracy plot is odd and feels rather tacked on as an excuse to make Harry and Olivia interact more, but I don’t particularly mind. Olivia is fun and would much rather talk about politics and read the newspaper than read a novel, but tends to unintentionally get caught up acting like a gothic heroine. Harry is entertaining, but I’m not sure I actually liked him until he bought Olivia a gothic novel and then liked it more than she did. (He also comments that you can tell if a book is written by a man or a woman by whether or not the heroine dies, hich goes a long way to explaining my reading tendencies.)
Unfortunately, the book also sets up no less than five possible sequels. This is unfortunate not because it’s unusual for the genre (it’s the opposite, in fact), but because I found most of them to be considerably less-than-appealing. (The “next book” blurb confirms that Quinn’s next book will be about Sebastian, Harry’s best friend. I would have liked Sebastian if there hasn’t been a bit early on where he made his rival’s fiancée fall in love with him and then dumped her, presumably so the guy would be stuck with a woman who didn’t love him. Or so she’d jilt him. Regardless, it was supposed to make him the typical Fake Rake of romance novels but making him use a completely innocent woman for revenge, but just made him a loser to me. I will be satisfied only if the book reveals that she now writes gothics and has made Sebastian the villain in all her books. And a whole, whole lot of groveling.) There’s also a subplot about Harry’s angst regarding his father being an alcoholic. It’s built up a lot, but never really dealt with, resulting in an odd, unfinished feeling to the book. I suppose the real fallout from that is being saved for one of the inevitable sequels.