Little Lady, Big Apple by Hester Browne

And FINALLY, I come to the book I finished most recently (this afternoon), Little Lady, Big Apple by Hester Browne. Unfortunately, I picked this book up not realizing that there was a prequel called The Little Lady Agency by the same author, but it was enjoyable even without having read the prequel. I do plan on going back and reading the first book, and I hope that knowing how it turns out won't make the read any less enjoyable.

It's the story of a woman (Melissa) who runs an agency for men providing services such as picking out gifts for wives, girlfriends, mistresses, blah blah blah, giving them etiquette lessons, posing as their girlfriend for family functions, basically giving them the tools they need to appear to be well-put-together men of substance regardless of whether or not they really are. She's based in London, but her boyfriend moves to New York for a short period of time and she goes with him for a holiday. As you might imagine, hijinks ensue. It's similar to the Shopaholic series - precocious British leading lady, dashing American businessman love interest, trials as she attempts to acclimate herself to life in Manhattan.

I'll have to read the first book to really comment on this, but I will say that Browne went quite out of her way to make Jonathan (Melissa's American boyfriend) behave atrociously in this book. I was surprised at how far she went with such a small amount of character credit built up in the "But really I'm a good guy" bank - although maybe she expected that would all transfer from the first book to the second, and not having read them in the correct order, I missed out. All I'm saying is that after you've read enough books, it becomes very clear what the author is planning to do with a character over the course of the novel by how they have them behave...and it was clear from pretty early on that Browne was directing the lovers down a star-crossed path. Your readers aren't idiots, authors. They don't need to be spoon fed their emotions -- "Hey, look what a bad guy this character is, you should be suspicious of him!" -- it basically just leaves the reader feeling like the protagonist must be an idiot to stick around and put up with such ridiculous behavior for so long - whether it's from a boyfriend, a colleague, a parent, whatever. It just doesn't need to be overdone.

I guess I wonder if authors think that if they don't clearly draw the lines between good and evil, readers will become upset about the fates assigned to certain characters left in purgatory. Am I the only one who thinks that forming your own opinion about characters, novels, stories, is most of the fun of reading? Then again, maybe I just need to start reading things that are actually meant to challenge your mind and spur conversation rather than chick lit imported from the UK.

So it was a good read, but again it's back to the old standard -- there's a time and place for sweet cake, but eat too much of it and it'll make you sick.