AAR

[lorif]

We've just been talking about that [/quote]

Sorry about that, missed it at the top and didn't get the acronyms.

[Susan/DC]

I liked Lauren. She and Julian, a character from Balogh's earlier single title Tangled, are both people who were abandoned as children. Each was taken in by a warm, loving extended family, but each bears the scars of that abandonment. In One Night to Remember Lauren loves Neville, but a large part of that love is that he represents her feeling that through marriage to him she will become a legitimate member of the family and not simply a hanger-on or charity case. Deep down she does not believe that the family does not view her that way but loves and accepts her. I found that actually quite realistic for someone who has lost her parents when very young. Lauren as intent on being perfect so that no one would have the excuse to abandon her again -- and then, of course, her nightmare comes true and she is abandoned at the altar. I thought she had every excuse to act out and I was very happy when she got her own HEA. I thought she was far better developed than Lily, the heroine of ONtR, who never came alive to me.

As for Julian, in a far more problematic book, he takes the opposite tack. He is handsome, charming, and a scoundrel. I saw him as constantly pushing the envelope to see if he would still be accepted, still be loved, no matter how awful he was.