Mine Till Midnight by Lisa Kleypas

It must be hard, to be an author who wrote a well-loved book early in her career. Every time I read a review of a book by Lisa Kleypas, it usually starts, "this book can't compare to Dreaming of You". How can you live up to that? It must be frustrating. I try to look at books with a fresh eye and not compare them to their past successes too much, but still, I can't help thinking, "I know you can do better than this."

Mine Till Midnight by Lisa Kleypas
(2007, Victorian) 12/5/08
Grade: 3

Amelia Hathaway has her hands full dealing with her younger sisters and her wayward elder brother, who just inherited a title. But when Cam Rohan, a Gypsy who has made a life on the edges of civilized society, enters her life, she can’t stop thinking about him - and he finds her unforgettable as well, although he longs to return to his Gypsy roots.

An oddly unemotional book. I’m not sure if the problem was that I hadn’t read the earlier books in this series, or if the characters were just undefined and underwritten. I enjoyed reading about the Hathaways and their problems, but Amelia wasn’t particularly unique - she was the managing spinster older sister that I’ve seen in dozens of books. Cam should have been a delightfully unique character, but I found him even more of an enigma. We get hints of his life, but there’s a lot of “tell” instead of show. I didn’t find their love story particularly emotional, or believable - it just seemed like the author was going through the motions. The hint of a paranormal subplot also didn’t work, and felt tacked on. Kleypas is always readable, so I didn’t have any trouble finishing the book, but I was left feeling unsatisfied and disappointed.

This book is a good example of why I get frustrated with never-ending series. Technically, this book is the first book in a new series about the Hathaway family. But it's related to many of the author's previous books - the Wallflower series for a start, but it's also related to bunches of her other books, going all the way back to Dreaming of You. I've read some of the previous books by Kleypas, but evidently not enough of them to keep track of all of her interlocking characters - I was left feeling like I'd walked into the middle and didn't know what was going on. (Would Cam have been a more compelling hero if I'd read all the previous books?)

I'm left with a dilemma - I don't really want to waste my time reading books that are soggy and uninteresting and contain plot points that I hate. All series contain some books like this. (No author writes a winner every time, especially for a picky reader like me.) But if I pick and choose and only read some of the books in a series, I'm left feeling lost. I'm beginning to wonder if I should just skip series books altogether. but that doesn't leave much to choose from, since romance authors are just ga-ga about endlessly long series. It's frustrating. I gave up on a Liz Carlyle book last week for the same reason.