When Strangers Marry [Large Print] (Hardcover)

Romance writing has changed during the last ten years. In this interpretation of the story, the author has ripened our characters' relationship by using friendship, humor, and attraction rather than Max's insatiable lust displayed in the earlier version.

Lisa Kleypas has written our heroine, Lysette Kersaint, as an intriguing woman, not breathtakingly beautiful as in the original, just a strong caring attractive person. Kleypas' pen allows Lysette to grow and become Maximilien Vallerand's staunch supporter and friend.

The author has toned down Max's personality. He is still a remarkable fellow, but is not the harsh angry man from the first edition. Furthermore, Kleypas has chosen to write Max enjoying an understanding relationship with his twin sons, rather than the unfriendly, demanding bond found in book one.

In this study, the writer chooses to explain the wicked Corrine Vallerand, as a woman stricken with a mental disorder. Following this interesting route, Kleypas presses for the reader''s sympathy rather than disgust for this disturbed wife and mother.

Even the loyal Vallerand housekeeper's, Noeline, has not escaped a revision. Here she emerges as a wise, well-spoken, poised woman. Even the description of Noeline's bloodlines is softly unveiled and gently drawn.

Comparing the two novels written ten years apart, I preferred this rendition of the Kleypas' story. The author has delivered a descriptive sensual story.

Grace Atkinson, Ontario - Canada.

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I never read the first edition of this book, Only in Your Arms, but I can easily see how this is a revision of an early novel. It certainly has the FEEL of an early novel, with stops and starts, too much detail where there should be less, too little where there should be more.

All my initial impressions of characters were wrong; I thought Lysette, the heroine, would be slightly docile, leaning more towards the damsel in distress, Max, the hero, being more domineering, dark, with perhaps questionable intentions? The same was true with all the lesser characters. I don't know if this was intentional, or if the author was changing her mind about the characters as she went along.

And I never thought I'd say this about one of these books, but Lysette and Max were acually a little too amorous for me. Not that i don't enjoy a good love scene, but when it gets in the way of the plot, it's a problem. Whenever Max and Lysette get into an argument, it always goes to the bedroom (or floor, or desk...). It didn't seem like they ever actually solved their problems. You know those women who use sex to get their way? That's Lysette all over. It was really hard to respect either one of them.

And my favorite character turned out to be evil (that twist, by the way, becoming annoyingly obvious to the reader about 100 pages before the characters notice).

If you like steamy novels, you might like this. If you like a consistent plots and characters, you might not.

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