Grade: B+

I’m gonna go ahead and say it. The reason I put off reading this book is the hype. About twenty people (you know who you are) told/asked me to read this bad boy and gushed about how great it was and I was afraid that when I finally got around to reading it, I was going to be disappointed. It happened to me with Brokeback Mountain. For days, a friend of mine wouldn’t shut up about it, telling me it’s the best movie I’ll see all year. When I finally saw it, I thought, “That’s it?” From the way she talked about it, I thought it was going to be a huge butt-fuckathon, but (hee-hee) I found myself a little underwhelmed. It just wasn’t… gay enough, I guess? Do you know what I mean? But let’s get back to Dreaming of You. Was it everything I’d ever wanted in a romance novel? Close, but no dice. It’s a good read, don’t get me wrong, but it suffers from the dreadful disorder of The Author is Obviously In Love With The Hero Syndrome. It’s a common enough affliction, but if the heroine had been written better, I think it would have been an awesome book.But before I start bitching about Sara, I want to make it clear that I really enjoyed this book. Derek is a hero I’ve never read about before, but I just think that the story would have flowed better if Sara had been a more active heroine. She is someone who allows things to happen to her, instead of initiating them herself. As it is, she is eclipsed by Derek, who is by far, a more developed character than she is. As a character, she doesn’t really evolve. I guess we were supposed to think that she had become a different person when she decides that she will no longer marry her sissy-ass mama’s boy fiancé after a couple of slap-tickle sessions with Derek, but I just wasn’t convinced. She was a boring character. She kind of redeems herself to me when she calls the villain “you bitch” (it was a hilarious scene), but other than that, she didn’t interest me. She’s like toast, you know? Buttered, but still kind of dry.

Anyway, Sara Fielding is a writer, well-known for her scandalous novel, Mathilda. Mathilda is about a selfless hooker who dies tragically (or does she?) and apparently so well-researched that anyone who has read it refuses to believe that Mathilda is a figment of Sara’s imagination. Over the years, Sara has made enough money from her novels that she is able to take care of her elderly parents without having to worry about marrying rich or whatever silly thing that romance heroines do to support their families. In the little town where they live, Sara has a boyfriend who is a creepy mama’s boy and hasn’t proposed to her because his mother is a possessive psycho. While in between novels and pining for her wuss boyfriend, Sara travels to London and explores its seedier side for research. It is during one of these adventures that she comes across a dude getting his ass kicked and to help him out, she fires her gun at one of the goons, effectively killing him.

By the way, Sara pretty much forgets about killing this goon quite soon after the fact, so don’t worry about it.

Luckily for her, the dude she saves is Derek Craven, the richest man in London and the owner of an exclusive gaming club. Sara sees this as an opportunity to further investigate the man and his club, especially because she is writing a book about gambling. Derek says no to her proposition, of course, but his secretary Worthy has taken a liking to Sara and offers to show her around. Circumstances and plot contrivances force Sara and Derek to bump into each other as often as possible and voila! They are in love. Or something like that.

Derek reminds me of the Beast from the Disney cartoon. He’s all growly and mean, but rightfully so. After all, he has had an awful life, which started from the moment his prostitute mother left in the gutter for dead as an infant. In order to survive, Derek becomes a thief, a grave robber, and lastly, a man-whore, which enables him to save enough money to open a gambling club. Over the years, Derek has seen the seediest, most evil shit in life, and because of this, he has become one bad motherfucker. A boy raised in the rookery, he doesn’t have “airs” about him. He even speaks with a cockney accent. He doesn’t trust anyone, especially women, and is an all-around prick. In short, he is a fucking catch, y’all!

The relationship that really fascinated me in this story is the one between Derek and Worthy. Worthy, a man that Derek once saved from a hanging, is Derek’s right hand man. He takes care of Derek and the club and serves as Derek’s bridge to humanity. Yes, there are Alex and Lily, but they have their own lives, while Worthy is with Derek all the time. In a pinch, Worthy would kill for Derek and protect him at all cost. Derek, in turn, confides in Worthy what he won’t tell anyone else and watches over him in his own way. Though Derek would probably rather die than admit it out loud, Worthy is his best friend and vice-versa.

Another person more interesting than Sara is Lady Joyce Ashby. Call me crazy, but I sympathized with this woman—the villain—more than the heroine. I mean, Joyce took the stereotypical “woman scorned” ball and just ran with it. Who hasn’t gotten dumped and wished she could slash her ex-boyfriend’s face to ribbons? Sure, she hires a bunch of goons to disfigure Derek (he’s too pretty, anyway) and yes, she manipulated a nasty ass dude to rape Sara, but she is just someone who likes to think outside of the box. She’s fun, lively, crazy as shit, but her scenes with Derek positively sizzled (the part where he strangles her? I swooned!). I think if this book had been about Joyce and her big ass redemption arc, I would have absolutely adored it.

As for Sara? Alright, I concede that she is very pleasant, but she just really annoyed me. She’s such a timid little mouse… and kind of a moron. There’s a scene where Derek seduces her as she is masquerading to be someone else and when Derek finds out who she is, and kicks her out, what does she do? Run away with Derek’s unscrupulous competitor, of course! It really bothered me that Sara kept putting herself in these situations where Derek has to save her dumb ass. I’m aware that Kleypas wrote her this way so that Derek would look more like a grand, kickass superhero, but it just ends up subtracting from Derek’s cool factor because he falls in love with such a mouse (he calls her “Mouse”, by the way). What’s a big cheese hero without an adequate foil? I just wish that Sara had been more of a match for Derek, that’s all.

Aside from a lackluster heroine, this book is really fab. Sure, the villain is a caricature of the slut-bag ex-mistress mold and yes, the characterization of the hero is ripped out of the pages of a Dickens novel, but I had a very easy time reading this book. I was disappointed that it wasn’t as frickin’ awesome as everyone said it was, but I’ve read about eight Kleypas stories in a row, and that may account for it. Also as great as Derek was, he still didn’t knock down Sebastian, Marques of Bonnington, as the Ultimate Romance Hero in my heart. He made me swoon in certain spots, but come on, Sebastian turned away from his title to become a gardener for his lady love, for God’s sake!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 7th, 2006 at 10:10 pm and is filed under Books, Grade: B, Romance: Historical. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.