AAR

[bijoux]

The review is up here.

I'm not too crazy about this part:

[Yulie]

This is more of a concern to me:

[bijoux]

One excerpt (although, of course, I can't remember which one) indicated that Ella is indeed a "half-hearted vegan" and that she only decided to become one because of her boyfriend. So, I don't think it will be Jack making her bend to his will and ways, but making her realize that she did this to please someone else and figure out what it is that she wants.

[xina]

[Yulie]

[Sandy AAR]

Jumping in here. Not the reviewer for this one, but I have read it.

As bijoux says, the character's veganism was more to please her previous boyfriend. Yes, she gives it up but I think that's more of an independence thing than a result of being unduly subject to Jack's influence.

I really liked both the hero and heroine.

[blytheaar]

[Cora]

[cpeachy]

i am with Cora in this one .
We rarely had meat at home because we could not afford it ,so i don't eat much of it.
I do feel guilty for not giving more meat to my children though.
to the vegetarian ,is your children vegetarian too?

[Estelle]

Could I request a spoiler by any chance? Is the hero indeed a possible father for the baby? In other words, did he sleep with the heroine's sister? I'm not too fond of that type of storyline so I'd rather know in advance before deciding whether to read the book or not.

[Yulie]

[blytheaar]

I think the way I phrased it was pretty accurate. He doesn't help her decide for herself so much as he lures her out of what she never really believed in anyway. To be clear, it's not just vegetarianism he is luring her out of, but veganism. It didn't come across as "all vegetarians secretly want a good steak" to me. (I, too, never think about wanting a good steak, but I would personally never be a vegan either).

To answer another question, one of my teenage daughters is a vegetarian, and has been for several years. The rest of my kids eat meat. This particular daughter read Smooth Talking Stranger as well, and we talked about the vegetarian thing. What bothered her was that the heroine had become a vegan in the first place when her heart wasn't really in it, just for a man. I guess it bothered me less partly because I am older and have seen people do plenty of stupid things for the wrong reasons. Or maybe because I initially became a vegetarian because of a man.
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Blythe
AAR Managing Editor

[Yulie]

Blythe, I hope I'm not coming across as too critical, because that's not my intention. What I'm trying to clarify here for myself is whether or not he's making decisions for her - I'm not comfortable with that, even if it is well-intentioned. What was your impression of the dynamics between them?

[Ellen AAR]

I am so looking forward to this - I have quite fallen in love with Lisa Kleypas's contemporary romances. As for the heroine's being a vegetarian.....I read a Harlequin Superromance by Bobby Hutchinson several years ago where the heroine was a vegan chef, and quite frankly was a total b*tch about it. If I had been the hero of that book, I'd have called her out for her rudeness and walked off. Instead, he married her. Poor man - he's going to be miserable.

I eat very little meat myself and during Lent I give it up entirely. I really don't miss it much.

[Linda in sw va]

Hmmm, I spent several years as a vegetarian and I have to say in the beginning I really missed meat a lot. I went vegetarian because of how horribly the animals are treated in factory farming but as for taste..well I've always liked the taste of meat. My family ate meat though and I would cook it for them and let them make their own choices, I would never have tried to push my own beliefs on them. I ended up becoming very sick at one point a few years down the road and the only thing I found I could stomach after weeks of trying various types of food was chicken soup which I tried as a last resort. So that and there was the end of me being vegetarian. I fount out months later I was also severely anemic and even though I loved beans and greens and ate plenty of them was not absorbing enough iron in my vegetarian diet. I was tired all the time and my hair started thinning out. Once my doctor realized what was wrong I was on iron supplements 3 times a day until I built my reserves back up. I have more energy now than ever and my hair has recovered and I feel healthier now that I eat meat than I did when I did not, though it's not supposed to be that way according to a lot of what you read.

I for one think it would be interesting to have a vegetarian heroine but not if she's going to be preachy and judgmental toward those who are not.

Linda
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"The Bookshop has a thousand books, all colors, hues and tinges, and every cover is a door that turns on magic hinges." ~ Nancy Byrd Turner