A Touch of Romance

I enjoyed reading this book. It had a good storyline to it, a bit unusual. There was a lot of description of the country houses and the lives of the people who live there. The two main characters were intriguing as they had great difficulties to overcome but eventually they found happiness together.l do recommend you read this book.

Thank you very much to Paullett Golden, who provided me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Possible Spoilers

Jules and Leila meet at a writer’s retreat hosted by mutual friends. Randomly paired together for an activity, they don’t expect to like each other much, and when instead sparks fly, no one is more surprised than they are. But Jules, of humble means, had always imagined himself married to his studies, and Leila isn’t entirely available, waiting for her father to present her with an advantageous match. What chance did they have of being together?

It took me a bit to get into this story—the writer’s retreat wasn’t very compelling—but confident I’ll like anything Golden does at this point, and growing more enamored of the characters, I persevered. And indeed, by the end was I entirely satisfied.

It’s not that the beginning was poorly written, it just lacked excitement and too easily put me to sleep. Pair that with the length of the novel altogether, and it took me a bit longer to reach the end than anticipated. Once Jules arrived at Nasrin Manor, it finally had some energy and the pace picked up. I wonder if the plot might have benefited from a bit of rearranging, perhaps introducing Jules as the new tutor rather than starting at the retreat. I understand the importance of the retreat, Golden developed their characters and relationship beautifully there, but I still wonder if she shouldn’t have led with that.

Leila was a delightful heroine; I enjoyed how her wit and actions tiptoed along the edge of propriety, in a tasteful way. Not uptight, but not immodest either. The lake incident tested my patience with her, but she berated her own stupidity after, so I forgave her. Jules was an equally wonderful hero, understated and down-to-earth. I’ll swoon over a brash, plainspoken alpha hunk like Dean Winchester, but I also appreciate the quiet, steadfast, responsible, and far more reliable and relatable betas. Don’t underestimate adorkable nerds.

A couple minor comments:

While rip-roaring hilarity isn’t Golden’s flavor, I adore the more subtle humor in her novels; I especially adored the sweet and mischievous boys here, Anik and Anil. I wish they’d played bigger roles. All hail the monkey king!

I was surprised that both Jules, and Golden through him, misused a Shakespeare quote; when pretending to search for “Lady Amelia” during the second theatrical, Jules says, “Lady Amelia? Wherefore art thou?” But “wherefore” doesn’t mean “where,” it means “why.” It could be argued that he purposefully misused the quote for comedy, but I don’t think that’s the case.

Overall, while I wish the beginning had been a bit more compelling to yank me into the story by the collar, I enjoyed this story as much as I have all of Golden’s work and can’t wait for her next novel.

As for the flash fiction, I enjoyed them all, but The Marriage is my favorite from this round. I did miss the story of gothic perfection from the first anthology, though.