| Title: Chasing Perfect Author(s): Grade: B - |
I had never picked up a Susan Mallery novel before though I’d seen her on the shelves. It was no specific reason, and I’m sure I would have eventually. However, though LibraryThing, I had the opportunity to get a free advance edition of her newest book, Chasing Perfect.
I liked this book. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it. I thought it was a well-written story that had a few cliches, but the author kind of brought together a few different predictable plot elements in a way I hadn’t read before. That being said, I wouldn’t say that it was a page turner that I couldn’t put down. Odds are that if it hadn’t been the first day of my spring break, I probably would have picked it up and put it down a lot more often. It kept my attention enough to want to finish it, but not in the way that Lisa Kleypas or Nora Roberts has.
I liked the heroine, Charity. I thought she was well-drawn with an occupation I hadn’t read about before–city planner. Her personal story was fun to read and I liked watching her settle into the small town. She was probably what kept me in one place to finish the book–to see how her through line played out.
The hero, Josh, was mostly enjoyable. I felt like I was supposed to take for granted that he was charming, but I didn’t feel it right away, not until the two characters were together. He almost felt…too planned, if that makes sense. He was a bit too much of a martyr for me and when he’s swearing to stay away from Charity for the first half of the book, I felt like rolling my eyes. The author went to too much trouble to make him a tortured soul — the reason he was wasn’t cycling competively anymore was fine, but then Mallery threw in a fight with a best friend over the fact Josh didn’t visit him in the hospital after an accident that Josh didn’t cause. And the reason this fight was weird to me was that it was resolved between the two with almost no fanfare, like Ethan (the other guy) didn’t really know why they still weren’t speaking. It just seemed like an added conflict that went no where and didn’t add to the story.
However, I’m pretty sure Ethan is the hero in book two, and that’s probably setting up that book in someway. I understand that in a series, you have to set up the next book and the next character well enough so that the reader will want to read it. Nora Roberts and Lisa Kleypas are my two favorite authors, and their series are like crack to me. It just felt slightly forced to me with Ethan and this stupid fight between he and Josh.
Additionally, there was a tiny sub-plot involving missing money that was no mystery to me and I figured out the second it was introduced. It just felt like a way to get rid of a character Mallery had written in and then decided to get rid of.
While it may sound like I had a lot of problems with this book, I didn’t. Overall, it really is a charming read and it’s the heroine, Charity, who saves the book so its a good thing she’s the narrator most of the time. She gives the book the B- rather than the C+ it was heading towards. It’s only when I broke the plot down in my head for this review that little things niggled at me. If you don’t expect too much and you just want some light-hearted fantasy, I recommend it.
That being said, I will pick up another Susan Mallery book 
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