Sometimes I get frustrated by the double standard in many romances - heroes are allowed to be bad, and even when they treat the heroine like dirt, they're easily forgiven. But a bad girl heroine usually turns out to be "just misunderstood". Thankfully, not in this book (which, unsurprisingly, is more women's fiction than romance).
Any Rich Man Will Do by Francis Ray
(2005, Contemporary) 5/21/06
Grade: 3
After working her way through most of the wealthy men of Dallas, Jana has hit rock bottom. She faints with hunger in the elegant linen store of Olivia, who thinks the best of everyone and who takes in Jana despite her past. Her brother Tyler is more skeptical, but as Jana works to redeem herself, he finds himself more and more intrigued. This book is obviously a sequal, but I was able to follow along without too much trouble. (The review at AAR helped to explain some of the back story.
At first, I really enjoyed this story of redemption - Jana isn’t just misunderstood, she did some awful things, and her struggles to get back on her feet were compelling. But the other characters in the book, particularly Olivia, were just too saintly to be true, and after a while, they began to grate. (There’s also an over-emphasis on the expensive linens that Olivia sells - isn't Jana supposed to be learning that material things aren't important? It's hard to get the message when the author keeps fawning over the $10,000 sheets.) Jana gets over her past a little too quickly, and in the second half, the focus shifts to Olivia, and she’s so “perfect” that I lost patience. (Even when she’s making questionable decisions, everyone around her treats her as a saint.) Still, I liked Jana’s story enough to finish.
Even though it ended up being somewhat disappointing, it's nice to read something different once in a while.
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