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Chocolate Roses (2010)

by Joan Sowards(Favorite Author)

3.41 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1935217623 (ISBN13: 9781935217626)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Walnut Springs Press

review 1: (Genre:LDS Fiction/Romance) 2 stars. Meh. I was rather lukewarm about this one. This book is listed as a "LDS Jane Eyre Parody" and it was okay. Not "bad", but not really good either. Jane and her sister Kylee are orphans that were raised by their eccentric Aunt Lucy. Upon reaching adulthood, the sisters open up their own chocolate shop. Kylee (the older sister) is married with 3 children while Janie is 27 and single. The highlight of Janie's week is Tuesday-that's when HE comes in the shop. Roger Wentworth is a very handsome man in a suit that comes to the shop every Tuesday to order a chocolate rose to be delivered to one Winnie Wentworth. Janie is besotted with Roger even though they have never had a conversation beyond his buying his chocolate. She knows nothing about ... morehim or his life, but she is in love. When he moves in next door with his 4 year old daughter, Janie is sure it is fate-they are meant to be together.If you are familiar with Jane Eyre, then you can see where everything is going. While I liked some of the side characters that worked in the shop, I found myself just not connecting with Janie and Roger. I had a hard time understanding her infatuation with Roger just based on his looks and their limited conversations. Since I wasn't falling for him, I couldn't understand why she would :). However, I may have been overly hard on it based on how I much I love the original "Jane Eyre" novel and its main characters.
review 2: Janie Whitaker is in looovveee. With a man she sees for a few minutes every week, when he comes in to buy some chocolate to be delivered to a mysterious person at a mental institution. He barely acknowledges her, barely knows that she is there, yet she has an instant infatuation with him because he’s extremely handsome and has very sad eyes. Not really the stuff of inspiring romance - I could have used a little more character development with Roger Wentworth. He is a good man of course, but since Janie hardly knows him, I hardly know him. The book has an LDS slant, and most of the main characters are Mormons, with one character converting in the book. Not being of that faith myself, I was a little confused at some of the things Mormons do as part of their religion, but it is not a major part of the book.There is some intrigue with the secret Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth are keeping, but Janie does know fairly early on that Mr. Wentworth is married and she does her best to fight her feelings for him. That conflict then is pretty straightforward, and I had a hard time feeling much sympathy with Janie since she knew what she was getting into. This novel is a modern update of Jane Eyre, (there are also quotes from the original novel, heading each chapter) but the whole thing felt very sanitized, and Mr. Wentworth seemed more like a cardboard cutout of a character for Janie to project her feelings on to. And I suppose because she was Mormon, Janie was far too concerned with obtaining a husband sometimes and that made me admire her character less. The supporting characters - mainly the ones who work in the shop with Janie - were more entertaining and the more oblique nods to characters in Jane Eyre (like John, the Baptist, Trevor, and Janie’s dog, Flo) made me smile because I appreciated their inclusion in the story. Overall, this story was quite passion-less for me; I didn’t feel particularly moved by the characters, or their predicament, the main interest it held for me was in how aspects of Jane Eyre were worked into the story. less

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