Inara Lavey

Loved it! Other than the whole "romance novels nearly ruined my life" issue (girl, please), this book was spot on from start to finish. Ok, fine, maybe Old School romance could mess up a woman's boyfriend radar. Cassandra's romance enthusiasm was wonderful, Connor's perspective particularly charming, and all of the supporting characters provided just the right amount of humor. The romance parodies were priceless (I particularly loved how the author plays with foreign interjections). By books end the cast of Star Dust was acting out these scenes (a fantasy I'd love to see come to life).… (meer)

This is the story of Cassandra (a bad tempered office worker who consumes mass quantities of romance novels that star brooding Heathcliff-like heroes and TSTL heroines ) and Connor (an Irish businessman). Cassandra has always daydreamed of being swept off her feet by a brooding @sshat hero. I mean, seriously? Who dreams of crazy men like Heathcliff?

Cassandra goes on a week vacation with her BFF Val where she meets Raphael (who reminds her visually of Heathcliff), Connor, and Trish (who comes across as an anorexic cougar on the prowl). Cassandra immediately is attracted to Raphael (who has a very easy going passive personality). Raphael likes her, too, but thinks she is much calmer and nicer than she really is because she puts on a front whenever he’s around. Connor – who happens to not be as attractive as Raphael – likes Cassandra as well but somehow gets to see “the real her,” temper and all. Conner chases after Cassandra even though Cassandra made it clear that she likes Raphael and Raphael has told Connor that he likes Cassandra.

I liked the relationship that was being built between Cassandra and Connor – but the “love triangle” with Connor’s buddy Raphael was…boring. Raphael was not an interesting character and I’m sure part of that was deliberate on behalf of the author to show how unsuitable he was for Cassandra. Unfortunately this attempt left the character very static and makes it difficult for the reader to understand Cassandra’s attraction at all (yes, I get he’s cute…so what?).

The frequent daydreams that Cassandra has were horribly annoying. I skipped almost all of them except for a few in the very beginning & end. I find it difficult to believe that any functional woman could drop into such complex daydreams so completely so often. Cassandra often dropped into daydreams in the middle of social events and/or conversations, totally tuning out the people she’s with or talking to. Where I’m from that’s extremely rude. The overly long italicized daydreams often happened in the middle of Cassandra’s inner dialogue – which was often confusing and slowed down the pace of the novel. I wanted Cassandra to figure out what she wanted without it having coached around a daydream. I assume that the daydreams were supposed to take the place of the character’s internal struggle. Meh. I think that the worse part of all the daydreams is that the final scene where the two characters get together is almost entirely an italicized daydream. Why? Oh why?

I had some issues with the wording, too. How many times are we going to talk about “cobalt blue” eyes? I get that Cassandra wants to be a TSTL romance heroine (which she does nicely) but don’t beat me over the head with it, please?? And then there’s parts like this:

“That doesn’t surprise me, either,” said Val, who obviously knew more than she was letting on.
“You know more than you’re letting on, don’t you?”
“Just sleep on it, Cassie. You’ll figure out what to do.” Val waved and vanished out the door. Her tea rose scent lingered behind and I sneezed.


In all honesty the relationship between Cassandra and Connor was interesting enough that the love triangle and the anorexic cougar were distractions and did not help make the story more interesting. In fact, it made it less interesting.

I have to admit that I find it ironic that the major “obstacle” that stands in the way of Cassandra & Connor’s romance is Cassandra’s obsession with romance book heroes. Cassandra even goes as far as to burn her romance books and after proclaiming them trash. Hey, isn’t this a romance book? I can admit that the book burning was rather offensive to me. She could have donated those books instead of burning them! Wasteful as well as TSTL.

All in all, a quick and fun read as long as you skip the daydreams and ignore the secondary characters.
… (meer)

Reminds me more of Erica Jong than typical genre romance. The tone is lighthearted and bubbly, but not vapid. There are some really fun scenes-- I think my favorite is when Jeanette's maybe-suitor is telling her a Breton ghost-story, which provided a nice touch of scary/funny to the overall story. The primary focus, though, was Jeanette's relationship with Amaury and Marie-Elise. LaVey was somehow able to make an implausible scenario believable and touching. I guess my only complaint is that I'd like to read more about how their relationship develops over time... which as complaints go, asking for a sequel is really not a big one.… (meer)

From the opening daydream scene to the end, this is a loving send-up of old school romance and pulp fiction novels from the past, oh, 150 years maybe. If you're not familiar with or don't enjoy those older forms of the genre, I'm not sure how much you'd enjoy this book, but I thought it was hysterically funny. I actually laughed out loud at least once per chapter.

Cassandra meets her college friend Val for a vacation in San Diego, where they're joined by Val's favorite cousin, Rafael, and his business partner Connor. From his name to his body, Rafael fits all of Cassandra's daydream expectations about her romantic hero, which is what Val had hoped for, and which fits in with Rafael's plan to find an undemanding, biddable wife. (Seriously, every piece of this book references the genre.) Connor, on the other hand, shakes Cassandra out of her daydreams... initially, by completely infuriating with his jokes about her reading taste. However, unlike everyone else Cassandra interacts with, Connor also refers to her by her full name rather than the nickname Cassie, which she hates. So, while she is pursuing Rafael, the living embodiment of her romantic fantasies, she's feeling a strange, unwilling attraction to Connor, a man who truly sees who she is and, in turn, prompts her to remove the veil of her own illusions.

This is described on the ARe website as an erotic romance, which is probably not quite how I would describe it. There's a lot of steam, don't get me wrong, but most of the scenes are Cassandra's fantasies, which take old school love scenes and makes them a bit more graphic... and then she's interrupted. So, if you're looking for full-on erotica, this probably isn't it, but it does use very descriptive language and graphic details.

The ending could be considered HEA or HFA, depending on how you prefer to read it.

Bottom line: I never would have run across this book if ARe and the publisher hadn't done a promotion where it was given away for free, but I'm so glad they did! I really enjoyed this book and am looking forward to finding more by this author.… (meer)