February 26th, 2010 — 4 Stars, Artist, Contemporary, Doctor, Enemies, Estranged, Friends, Ghost, Movie Reviews, Rogues and Rakehells, Time Travel, United States of America
This is a fabulous contemporary update of the Christmas Carol
. Matthew McConaughey is Connor Mead. Connor is the new Mr. Scrooge, except he’s gorgeous, charming, and wealthy. So what’s wrong with the guy? Connor is a miser, just like Scrooge. How? Unlike Scrooge, Connor withholds love/feelings instead of money/possessions. Just like Scrooge, Connor gets visited by 3 ghosts and is forced to learn just what kind of man he really is.
The first ghost is the Ghost of Girlfriend Past. She is a 16 year old girl to whom Connor lost his virginity. Played by Emma Stone, she’s hardly recognizable in braces, frizzy red hair in pigtails and a crazy outfit. If it wasn’t for Stone’s distinctive voice I wouldn’t have been able to place her at all from her role in House Bunny.
Noureen DeWulf plays Melanie, the Ghost of Girlfriend Present. As Connor Mead’s overworked secretary she is the most consistent woman in his life. Melanie’s job includes scheduling everything from photo shoots to play dates. She draws the line at breaking up with his women (a firm believer in karma). DeWulf is fantastic and a sheer joy to watch on screen.
Nadja, Ghost of Girlfriend Future, is played by Emily Foxler. Beautiful and ethereal she leads Connor through the life he can expect if he doesn’t change his ways. Silent like the angel of death from Christmas Carol, she is nevertheless affective in communicating to the audience.
Daniel Sunjata is the wedding beefcake brought in to sex up Jenny Perotti’s love life. It bugged me the whole movie how gorgeous he was and how familiar his face and unable to place him. Ladies before you go to IMDB.com he’s James Holt from the Devil Wears Prada. He plays a sincere, sweet, and intelligent man, luckily for him when Jenny and Connor reunite he is not left out in the cold.
Jenny Perotti, played by Jennifer Garner, is the love of Connor Mead’s life. We watch them as youngsters, as teenagers, as just starting out in life adults and as established adults. Jenny is the girl next door, the one right under your nose. She’s been hurt by Connor in the past. If only being around him didn’t make her feel for him all over again she could move on with her life… will Connor learn his mistakes and if he does can he get her to believe in him again?
I predict Ghosts of Girlfriends past becoming a favorite among many. It certainly is one of mine!
Rating: 4 Stars
Buy: Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
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Originally posted 2009-05-13 05:17:07. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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February 4th, 2009 — 2.5 Stars, Baroness or Viscountess, Book Review, Counts, Marquis, Viscounts, Estranged, G-I, Great Britain, Heiress, Historical Romance
I generally liked this novel. It revolves around how a marriage once destroyed by infidelity can be healed. I have pretty strong views on this subject so I’ll talk about what ruffled my feathers. I’m like Viola, the heroine, at the start of the novel, looking at things in black and white. The author didn’t persuade me to think in gray matter, too bad Viola did. Luckily in the end she got what she deserved – a loving, devoted, adoring husband – but you could have fooled me. I still thought the hero was shy of truly learning how to love at the end of the book. However, you can be the judge.
Viola is the sister of a Duke and at the age of nineteen she knew she was in love with Viscount John Hammond. She also knew that despite the circumstances of his situation, he loved her, not the money she brought with her. How naïve she had been. John knew nothing of love; he was all empty words and passion.
“When unaccompanied by his love, a man’s desire was like the wind. It had no substance, and it was impossible to hold onto.” – pg 186
Now eight going on nine years after their vows, John has come to the decision to get himself an heir. For that, he will need to woo his way back into his wife’s bed. This task would prove impossible until he changed. But can a man like John, change his spots?
In the last ten pages he did. Until then the brute refused to take blame for more than half the novel and managed to in nearly every conversation lay the whole troubled affair at Viola’s feet. This is much like what happens in the movie Something to Talk About
starring Julia Roberts. This made me really mad and when it wasn’t John telling Viola how she made him break his marriage vows and slip into other women, it was the Duke’s wife that was telling her how she wasn’t looking at things from John’s point of view.
John broke his vows. Period. The end. Case closed. What kind of man has to hide his dirty deeds behind his innocent wife? In today’s world with all the diseases that can be caught, a man who cheats ought to be charged with attempted murder if he slips back into his wife’s bed (undetected or not) without first having himself checked out thoroughly.
Viola first turns John away from their marriage bed when she learns that he kept a mistress during the entire time he was courting her. All his words of love, adoration, devotion were lies. She might have forgiven him those if the other woman wasn’t involved. After all impoverished lords needed funds and heiresses to make them solvent – he could have learned to love her.
John waits a month and leaves Viola to live a separate life. There he has count them, five, mistresses in the space of the years prior to his most devout attempt at reconciling. He only does it because he needs a legitimate heir to the viscountcy. Viola is the only woman who can grant him this. So once again he plans to use false words to get her into bed and if that doesn’t work the law is on his side and he can force her there.
But in his own words the five mistresses were her own fault for being cold to him. Poor baby. Eventually he says he is sorry for his part in breaking their marriage by using his young nephew to be his buffer. I don’t think Viola had any part to breaking the marriage. Distraught as she was she stayed with him (granted making him take separate sleeping quarters and refusing to allow him to use passion against her to win his way back into her good graces) until he left.
Marriage vows are not a one way street. A man and his needs can be resolved with a hand not another woman or any of her body parts. Fidelity goes both ways. If he required it of her then it was not an unreasonable request for Viola to make of him. John said it was and refused to be sexually blackmailed. Well what the hell was he doing when he refused to promise fidelity but sexually blackmailing his wife?
Has anyone read this book? What do you think?
Rating: 2.5 Stars
Originally posted 2008-10-06 15:07:06. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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August 19th, 2008 — 1.5 Stars, Arabia/Middle East, Artist, Category, Contests, Guest Reviews, Kidnapping, Kings, Princes, Sheiks, Chiefs, P-R, Sheik/Desert
Cara Lynn writes to us her first romance novel review in response to the $10 gift card contest! LRP is very happy to have her with us today! If you would like to win a copy of a book by the author of this novel please see the end of the post for more information.
It’s pretty unfair for me to review this book, as this genre isn’t my particular favorite. However, they do get published!
When Tally finds herself kidnapped by Sheikh Tair, a fierce desert warrior, she comes up against the proverbial immovable mountain. I am not surprised. Tally is a photographer, and she has taken some compromising photos, or they could be. And not only that, her translators are more than they appeared, as they are enemies of the Sheikh. He isn’t at all convinced that she is innocent. However, he is more than willing to put her into his harem and to test her loyalties more than once.
She is determined to escape, but not knowing the land, finds herself in dangerous situations, where she needs to be rescued. And you guessed it, by Tair.
Ultimately, the Sheikh marries her (as you can tell by the title) and they fall in love – or do they. Perhaps they fall in lust. As in many Harlequin books, there are banter and arguments, but underneath it is respect for the man who is always wealthy and rich. Let’s face it, who would put up with these attitudes if he weren’t! The woman is always denigrated to an extent, which grates on me after a while – or from the beginning. It seems like an intelligent woman would use that intelligence to discern what kind of man the man is and not waste her breath on verbally fighting him. Of course, part of that is supposed to be sexual tension. How to rate the sex in this book? I didn’t feel like they had any chemistry. But that’s just me. Perhaps you did. I appreciate the fact that the sex is not crude. On the other hand, she doesn’t think she’s in love with him. And on the other hand, she is not a virgin, so she knows the ropes. And they both think the sex is great.
If you want a mindless read, or if this is your genre, you will enjoy this book. I’d have preferred it, if she had determined how he governed, what his daily life was like, what the issues of survival were, how she could contribute if she were his consort. (I can’t see her ruling.) Because she is less than prepared along these lines, she finds herself kidnapped by the men who had been her translators. She is rescued in about a page. I think this could have been extended too, over some of the other things in the book. But it fits the genre. After all, the Sheikh’s mother is from the West and married his father in similar circumstances. Perhaps one of the earlier Sheikh books by another author tells the generic story of their meeting.
Rating: 1.5 Stars
Thanks Cara Lynn for the review! RRN would be most happy to hear from you again!
If you’ve just finished reading a romance novel and want to write review but weren’t sure how check out LRP’s submission guidelines for tips and advice to get started.
SavvyThinker is holding a contest on an autographed copy of Odd Mom Out by Jane Porter. See her blog for more details.
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