Guilty Pleasures

Everyone has their own list; mine might go something like this: a bowl of chocolate ice cream, a mystery on a stormy night, popcorn and Doritos, a chick flick when Mike is away at work ... Actually, I could make a pretty long list. Apparently, I have accrued a number of guilty pleasures for myself over the years that should be enjoyed in moderation (but not always are). I have a whole separate category for guilty pleasures when it comes to reading. These are books that I don't consider substantive or informative or life-changing, just a rollicking good time. They're not works of literary brilliance, they just need a riveting plot and tolerable writing and fun characters. Sometimes I crave one of these fast stories the way I crave sweets.

The one that I just read is The Temptation of the Night Jasmine, by Lauren Willig. This is part of the Pink Carnation series, which are historical romances with an espionage twist. Heavy on the romance, lighter on the history, although that fills in the edges with plenty of accurate details. Let's be honest, though, I'm reading these for the romance, and the history just creates an elaborate setting. The espionage bit is good fun, as I don't like romances that have no other plot device than the love story, they generally fall flat. I'm still looking for a story.

In this fifth outing of the series we have Charlotte and Robert as our primary characters. Charlotte is the Duchess of Dovedale's granddaughter, and has been living with her imposing grandmother for many years, her parents having died when she was little. She is a quiet and shy person, preferring to live in her books than the real world, and a customary wallflower at the parties her grandmother throws (she reminds me an awful lot of my pre-college self, actually). Enter Robert, her very distant cousin, hardly a relative at all, who has finally returned to England. While most, including Charlotte, think that Robert has returned to finally assume his ducal title, his true motives are far different. Actually, he is hunting down the assassin of his former mentor, and using his home front as a cover for some sleuthing. In an attempt to keep Charlotte safe, Robert breaks her heart, but she manages to find her way into the mystery through another angle just the same, and they are thrown together again. As they pursue assassins and nefarious French spies they'll need to work through their past mistakes and miscommunications if they hope to find happiness together.

The novel is just as silly and fun as it sounds. I liked Charlotte and Robert. They were good people, with integrity and strict moral codes, and their romance was appropriately chaste. I know that some readers were upset by the lack of more ... mature ... love scenes, but I'm not looking for sex scenes when I'm reading, and I thought the way the main characters behaved was true to their natures. It was a simple and sweet love story. The espionage aspect of the plot was less involved than in other stories, since Charlotte bumbles her way into it by accident, and Robert thinks he is just hunting down a killer; neither of them realize that national security is at stake until late in the novel. This is a small strike against the novel, which I still thoroughly enjoyed. A perfect book for escape reading. The third book is still my favorite thus far, but this one is a nice installment in the series.