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jackiehorne 's review for:
A Kiss in Lavender
by Laura Florand
Florand recently announced that she was taking a year off from writing, since the past five years have been so draining for her. That drain is a little too evident in this latest volume in her La Vie en Roses book; there's a lot of repetition, and a rather thin storyline with a conflict between our protagonists that one good conversation clears up pretty quickly.
Yet Florand is so expert at evoking pleasure, the sheer joy of what it feels like to fall and be in love, that I'll read just about anything she writes and be happy when I finish. In this story, Elena, who has been helping Tante Colette throughout the series find and bring home long-lost members of her extended family, ends up falling for one of the exiles herself: Lucien Rosier, who fled home at 19 to join the French Foreign Legion, adopting a new name and new identity in the process. Elena discovers Lucien's whereabouts, and makes plans to confront him while he is on vacation in Italy. Yet she finds herself strangely attracted to him, even going so far as to accept his invitation to come back to his holiday apartment for a drink and wondering if she should sleep with him before telling him why she's really here. But when she calls him by his real name while they kiss, the cat is out of the bag.
Lucien does end up returning for the wedding (as readers of the previous book will already know, from that book's ending), and ends first arguing with, then finding himself still attracted to, Elena. So much that he's almost certain he wants her for the long run after their first kiss. Elena, though, has a major abandonment issues, and has a hard time believing that anyone, especially her childhood hero Lucien, will stick.
I really enjoyed Elena's prickly, cautious character, and the banter between her and Lucien; it seemed quite character-motivated, rather than just thrown in for laughs as it does in so many other romance novels. Lucien, too, had a character arc about acceptance and belonging and family, one that meshed well with Elena's. Though the big conflict could have been avoided with an honest conversation, Florand shows why such a conversation is next to impossible for Elena to instigate, or even contemplate, and why ignoring Lucien makes perfect sense to her.
Especially liked the decision Lucien makes at book's end in order to make his relationship with Elena possible. So many times such decisions turn on a woman's sacrifice, and not a man's, without any discussion of who is sacrificing what, and for what reasons (both in romance novels and in real life).
Yet Florand is so expert at evoking pleasure, the sheer joy of what it feels like to fall and be in love, that I'll read just about anything she writes and be happy when I finish. In this story, Elena, who has been helping Tante Colette throughout the series find and bring home long-lost members of her extended family, ends up falling for one of the exiles herself: Lucien Rosier, who fled home at 19 to join the French Foreign Legion, adopting a new name and new identity in the process. Elena discovers Lucien's whereabouts, and makes plans to confront him while he is on vacation in Italy. Yet she finds herself strangely attracted to him, even going so far as to accept his invitation to come back to his holiday apartment for a drink and wondering if she should sleep with him before telling him why she's really here. But when she calls him by his real name while they kiss, the cat is out of the bag.
Lucien does end up returning for the wedding (as readers of the previous book will already know, from that book's ending), and ends first arguing with, then finding himself still attracted to, Elena. So much that he's almost certain he wants her for the long run after their first kiss. Elena, though, has a major abandonment issues, and has a hard time believing that anyone, especially her childhood hero Lucien, will stick.
I really enjoyed Elena's prickly, cautious character, and the banter between her and Lucien; it seemed quite character-motivated, rather than just thrown in for laughs as it does in so many other romance novels. Lucien, too, had a character arc about acceptance and belonging and family, one that meshed well with Elena's. Though the big conflict could have been avoided with an honest conversation, Florand shows why such a conversation is next to impossible for Elena to instigate, or even contemplate, and why ignoring Lucien makes perfect sense to her.
Especially liked the decision Lucien makes at book's end in order to make his relationship with Elena possible. So many times such decisions turn on a woman's sacrifice, and not a man's, without any discussion of who is sacrificing what, and for what reasons (both in romance novels and in real life).