D+
Title: An Unlikely Setup
Author: Margaret Watson
Publication Info: Harlequin 2010
ISBN: 978-0373716081
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Sometimes, a romance is like a souffle. It’s all delicate and airy: there’s some fat and egg white for structure, and it’s sweet and light, and it can be satisfying, if not the most rib-sticking, satisfying thing you’ve ever eaten. But sometimes, because it’s a souffle, one little thing will break it, and the whole puffy thing that until that moment was fun and simple and pleasing will collapse while you stare in horror because there is NO WAY THAT JUST HAPPENED.
An Unlikely Setup was following the path of one of my new favorite forms of category romance plot: girl returns to small rural town and finds community, home, and a really hot guy with a supremely excellent bum. Hot Bum is Quinn, who runs the local pub, and returning girl is Maddie, who has recently inherited the local pub building and a house from her godfather. She’s in deep financial trouble after losing her job as a reporter because she thought flipping houses would work as a way to earn money quickly – even borrowing money from her best friend’s IRA – and when the bottom fell out of the housing market, she found herself way, WAY under water.
I must say, financial idiocy is not admirable in a heroine, but I sort of admire the risk that the author took, because Maddie is fully cognizant of the fact that she has fucked up and is on the cusp of fucking up even more. She’s been dumb, but is still somewhat sharp, and hasn’t let her own idiocy get her down.
She returns to Otter Tail (yes, that is the name of the town. Yes, I giggled and made lots of “nice tail!” jokes in my head) to sell the house and the pub, and finds out that her godfather had promised to leave the pub to Quinn, who was a close friend of his, but neglected to change his will in time. Maddie needs cash, and lots of it, for the sale of one or both, but when she finds she likes Otter Tail and wants to stay, she has to get more for the pub than Quinn is offering so that she can keep the house.
Meanwhile, she’s working at the pub to help earn off the costs of repairs to the pub to get it ready for sale or something – I lost track of the explanation but the upshot is that Maddie’s working for Quinn but she owns the building the business is in. Owner/tenant vs. boss/employee with the added benefit of an Irish pub and building Guinness. The situation places her in daily proximity of most of the town – of course there is only one pub! It’s Otter Tail for God’s sake! – and sure enough, folks like her, and want her to stay, and want her to sell to Quinn. Trouble looms in the form of a corporate agent from a large conglomerate superstore that is desperate to open a store in that county (think WalMart) and waving the promise of many, many dollars in front of Maddie, even though bringing the NotWalMart store to town will pretty much destroy everything she likes about it, and screw up many of her new friends’ lives.
Seriously, all this conflict stacked up fine for me, and I was going along for the ride with no problems. Quinn is too chest-thumpy at times, and Maddie is very sharp – so sharp I wonder how she found herself making the decision to flip houses after not nearly enough character exposition that would reveal WHY she’d think that was a solid time and financial investment. The dialogue, particularly Maddie’s smart mouth, is cheeky and fun. The ancillary characters are distinct, and some seem like very ripe sequel bait, while others are potential nemeses of the protagonists for one reason or another. The writing is solid and at times clever. Gatherings at the bar, which are nightly, make for interesting chapters, and even if I lose patience with Quinn and Maddie and their inconsistencies, the rest of the community provide entertaining reading.
Then: whoomp, there it was. More than one person has made vague or specific threats against Maddie and Quinn in the course of the story, and one night, after an evening of working at the bar and exchanging flirtatious, heated comments despite the issue of the sale and the boss/employee thing and the person who left her the property but meant the world to both of them hanging over both their flirty, goofy heads, Quinn drives Maddie home.
Maddie notices the porch light isn’t on. She left it on.
Quinn, a former cop, gets extra more chest poundy and they check it out… someone has busted the porch light and scrawled “BITCH” on the porch floor. A moment later, they see tail lights driving away in a real hurry from the woods adjacent to her home.
So: if you were in this situation would you:
1. Leave.
2. Find somewhere else to stay that night.
3. Call the actual police and not just the former police officer currently standing next to you.
4. Go inside, have a glass of wine, take a walk on the beach next to the house, make out on the beach next to the house, get to sca-rumpin’ on the sand all turned on because someone might be watching… while REMARKING that there’s NO WAY the person who defaced the porch could still be around because they saw him drive away.
Right. 1, 2, or 3, or all of the above, maybe. But 4? 4 is what made the souffle go PFFT and my jaw go WHAAA and my eyes go HURRR and my entire brain go NUH UH NUH UH NUH UH. Then my mouth went, “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” I expected Quinn to say, “Don’t worry, this is a Harlequin Superromance, not an Intrigue – we’re in no danger going full moon under the full moon!”
Seriously, I’m so irritated. I was perfectly happy enjoying a light and somewhat friendly read, hoping to see the potential of the future relationships that were possible in the community members, enjoying the talent that created distinct characters with a handful of lines and scenes…and then the hero and heroine have to do something so boneheaded I want to scrawl words across their porches, and by “porches” I mean “foreheads.”
The setup of the romance wasn’t so unlikely, really. It’s not as if Maddie’s godfather left her the property contingent upon the fact that she marry the sherriff and lose her virginity on the night of the crescent moon while wearing a red halter top. The setup was somewhat normal, even daring, given that the heroine is aware and straightforward about the fact that due to her own mistakes she’s in deep financial trouble that’s about to get a lot worse.
What was unlikely was the nookie, and the idea that they’d go get sand in intimate places on the night of a full moon (full moon! Ha!) after someone defaced a home that means a lot to both of them, that belonged to someone whom they are both grieving for, is just freaking looney, barking mad. I was grieving for their intelligence as I finished the book, and regardless of the resolution, remain frustrated that someone tossed a baseball made of boneheads into a perfectly nice souffle.
An Unlikely Setup is available from Amazon.com, eHarlequin.com, Book Depository and Powells.
Wow. I had no idea…I feel some sympathy for the author, then. The book had stuff which really didn’t…work. Like a pair meant to be comic relief who were…amusing, but transparent. Also, the pair of villains were essentially an old adventurer who has a deep-seated delusion to be worshipped as a hero, and his son, who just kills people. They have no REASON to be like they are. They’re just EVILLY EVIL!
Also, for god’s sake, Team Good had trouble fighting a BARD and a SCOUT? Jeezus. At least the Bad Guy squad has levels in combat-oriented classes. I could put together one guy to take out both of those clowns who are supposed to be the HEAD BADGUYS.
Um, well, the writer has *some* control!
They tell him what to write, but the actual execution depends on the writer’s skill—or lack thereof.
If he’s unable to put life and believability into his D&D characters, then it’s the writer’s problem.
I noticed in his wiki bio he’s only ever done WFH—which is how Rachel Caine started out, now she’s on the NYT bestseller list.
She did one WFH 20 years back, got paid a pittance, but it put her foot in the door to send out proposals. Rachel’s done thrillers, paranormal romance, and now YA and urban fantasy. She has a fondness for her first book, but under no illusions that it was great reading or writing.
She said:
“When I first spoke to a real editor, she asked ‘what have you written?’ I mentioned that book. The editor shook her head impatiently and said, ‘Yes, but what have you REALLY written?’ “
In the publishing ladder, WFH is one rung into being a professional, but far below selling your own work to a house!
There are rungs to WFHs, too. For instance, Lee Goldberg’s Monk series is miles higher on the ladder than a D&D book, but a D&D book is higher up than a quicky movie novelization—unless the movie is an A-List like The Abyss or Maverick, and the novelizations done by Orson Scott Card or Max Allen Collins.
WFH’s are generally considered the “fast food work” of publishing, and done for the money. You kick them out fast, then go back to your real work, but some writers make a career of them.
This is one:
http://leegoldberg.typepad.com/a_writers_life/2010/01/william-johnson-named-tiein-grandmaster-for-2010.html
All that—on a manual typewriter, at least in the early days.
There are many writers who make a good living kicking out one Harlequin category after another, some using multiple names. I know of a writer who does a book a month, finishing the story in just over three weeks, leaving the last bit of the month to be free to do revisions on a copy-edited book she turned in 6 months earlier.
I’ve seen these ladies at the conventions, proudly wearing their silver HQ pins that signal they’ve written 50, 250, even 500+ titles over the years.
Better believe I’m gobsmacked and humbled by all that effort!
P.S.
Be mindful that the D&D books are written with a specific target audience in mind: 14 y.o. white bread males who still think girls have cooties.
They’re looking at a less sophisticated version of “Comic Book Guy” from the Simpsons.
I am NOT kidding. My editor explained that to me, along with “You don’t have to work so hard, just turn it in on time. No one’s out to win a Pulitzer with this crap.”
I *did* get a bloody fantastic review in PW, despite their best efforts to mangle things. I refused to “write down” to the readers. The publisher acted like they’d planned it that way.
I have chosen to find them *amusing.*
this is the reason i tend to stay away from harlequins…the characters are super dumb and does things that no one in their right mind would do! i stick to authors i know that have not disappointed me and great reviews by ppl i trust…my time is too precious to waste it on harlequins monthly garbage.
Not at all, Kifah:) Thanks for letting me know the title. Someone must like it, even the used versions are selling for almost $10, but now I HAVE to read it…lol! Thanks again.
I can imagine the author thinking she had to put that gritty sex scene in
And all I could think was, “of course it was a gritty sex scene, they did it in the sand! Perhaps the scene sould have been more believable had he walked her into the house and “comforted” her that way. I’m just sayin’ yo.
My nephew’s name is Quinton and my friend’s son’s name is Kole (all of them in her family have the initials KG)
Yes, please DO TELL the name of the demon seXXXoring book. I’ve sometimes thought a prehensile tail would be a useful item, but I have to confess that that use never occurred to me. This undoubtedly explains why I am not a writer. 🙂
Even supposing the sex scene had to go in at that point (I’ve heard Harlequin has their rules for that sort of thing) if it had been pushed back a couple of pages, it might have made more sense.
Quinn: Going into a broken-in house is dangerous. Let’s call the sheriff.
They call the sheriff, the sheriff says don’t stay here tonight, wait until daylight. Quinn invites Maddie to stay over the night. They go back to his place, talk about her godfather and drink Scotch, fall into each others arms and have sex to comfort each other.
Would that have made more sense in the context of the story?
I read a manuscript from a would-be author where the heroine had let the creepy guy move in with her on a slim excuse, then suspected him of murder and did not call the police and tell them what she knew. Nor did she evict the creepy guy. And she kept going back to her apartment and being spooked because she thought creepy guy was gone, but he was there. I think the idea was suspense—is he the killer? Will he kill the idiot heroine and let us out of our misery?
I didn’t manage to read to the end to find out if creepy guy was actually the murderer.
Every once in a while I am surprised by a category romance with believable characters, a plot that has some kind of meaning and hangs together, and that uses language above a fourth grade reading level. My pet peeves—and why I rarely buy category: covers are crappy—plots are pitiful—characters are cabbages—emotional impact is empty—sexxoring is stipulated.
Having said all that stuff for the benefit of any Cat Pub lurking here, I have gone back to read categories by authors who advanced from that publishing house straightjacket requiring writers to hew the line of formula as a way to market books as though they were poptarts—don’t like them either.
Whew! Returning you now to a Better Bitches World…
I just wanted to point out that there is an Otter Tail county in Minnesota. I also think it is the name of a town, but I could be mistaken and am (at this moment) too lazy to look it up… but I woudln’t put it past us.