Bittersweet Honey...zzzzzzzzzzzz....

Monday, February 26, 2007

Last week on the family trip to Disneyland, I grabbed Bittersweet Honeymoon by Marjorie Lewty (published 1989) from the stash that Kris brought for down-time reading. I must say, it wasn’t too exciting. I’m not sure what the problem with it was exactly, but I was just not extremely interested in the wacky adventures of Fleur Gold (yes, that is her name, and she happens to be a florist – I can’t make that stuff up) and Elliot Stevens.

The wacky adventure at hand is this: Elliot is all set to wed the beautiful Melissa and Fleur is in charge of the flowers. Well, Elliot gets stood up AT THE ALTER on said wedding day! He tells Fleur about his predicament: Elliot and his new bride were planning on honeymooning in Italy to visit Elliot’s ailing father, but if Elliot shows up without a wife, well… the old geezer just might keel over. Yes, I know. It’s flimsy at best. Fleur agrees to be the substitute bride (handily, Elliot never mentioned his future wife’s name to his father. So let’s see, leaves sick dad in far away country, doesn’t invite him to the wedding, and doesn’t even tell him the name of his fiancé – what kind of son is he?!) but there’s a catch: Elliot must promise not to destroy Fleur’s mother’s flower shop when he tears down the building that it’s in. I forgot to mention: Elliot is in the lucrative construction/restoration biz and is planning on renovating the crumbling old building that the flower shop is in. And of course, Fleur and Elliot have a small run-in in the beginning of the book when she doesn’t realize who he is, blah blah blah. It’s the usual set-up.

ANYWAY, Elliot agrees to Fleur’s demands, and the deal is struck. There’s a somewhat-fun scene where he tells Fleur to go shopping on his dime and buy whatever clothes she might need for a trip to Italy. She gets some kind of groovy sounding things, but the best by far is the trendy “tube” that the sales girl talks her into. I cannot figure out what it is: obviously a tube, but a tube top? Tube dress? They make it sound like it can be anything the wearer likes, including but not limited to a swimsuit, so I assume it must be a tube of fabric that can be folded or squished into any length. I really wish this outfit had been highlighted on the cover.

So the two fly off to Italy and are met at the airport by Elliot’s new car, a Maserati! You can tell Marjorie thinks this is the most awesome car of all, because she spends a good deal of time telling us about it. It’s white. And handles the curves like a breeze.

Not surprisingly, Elliot’s father, Geoffrey, thinks Fleur is a doll. Otherwise, not a whole heck of a lot happens in Italy. It’s just… boring. Yeah, there’s a little romancing, but Elliot’s kind of a dork about it. He actually asks Fleur to marry him, but it’s a pretty lame proposal. He thinks that since they get along, they’ll have a happy marriage and eventually learn to love each other. Fleur is a master at denying her feelings, and since she thinks Elliot was so recently in love with Melissa, that he can’t possibly ever be interested in her.

This all pretty much continues on until the end, and I’m sure you know what happens. Frankly, I didn’t really care too much. Like I said, I can’t quite place my finger on it, but it’s just not very fun. The characters didn’t really talk like real people – I know, they never really do, but it was especially annoying in this one. Fleur describes Geoffrey as a “pet” and I HATE it when people use that word to describe people. It’s ridiculous. Only Vicky in The Parent Trap can get away with that.

The other irritating thing is that in the inevitable Conversation That Clears Everything Up In The Last Five Pages, Elliot admits that he loved Melissa but finally realized that she is a mere shell of a girl completely controlled by her awful mother and that it would’ve been a horrible marriage. He realizes that Fleur is the woman he loves because she’s interesting and has her own mind. This is all well and good, but Earth to Fleur! Just last week, he was in love with someone else! That sounds like a big fat red flag to me.

So, I guess if you want, go ahead and read Bittersweet Honeymoon. But don’t say I didn’t warn you!