Paperback Reader

Now I know that we’ve had conversations about Harlequin’s Next imprint, most of which have revolved around the “Huh?” question. Being intelligent women, we understand that “every life has more than one chapter”, but, being us, we simply didn’t get Next. I think we even made a pact not to read them because the whole concept just seemed silly. I still think it does, by the way. See my previous work on niches and lines, etc.

I don’t even know why I picked up Jennifer Greene’s Sparkle. I think it was because I needed to cleanse my retinas after seeing yet another loin-clothed Indian romance. Or maybe it was the cover. It’s kind of weird, with one woman looking like she’s blowing bubbles and the other looking adoringly at her (which, if you analyze it too long, creates a false impression about the novel, but my advice is don’t overthink it). So I picked it up and started the novel.

I also had noodles, but we can overlook cheating on my diet for the time being. That’s the bigger secret, by the way.

Okay, I know. Reviews are Not All About Me. Sparkle is about good things happening to people who don’t expect them. Think of this as a theme review. Poppy Thompson is “homelier than a coyote”, but, well, not unhappy. Sure, she’d like it if the men who asked her out didn’t treat the date like a mercy mission (with Poppy’s response being carnal gratitude), but she’s got a good life, a good family, and good job. She’s a dog groomer with a trace of dog whisperer. She works for the local vet, who despite being the George Clooney type, is a comfortable, close friend.

Bren Price couldn’t be less like Poppy if she tried (she won’t). She’s a local minister’s wife who takes her role very seriously. She serves the less fortunate, she sacrifices, she believes that what she does is the right thing. Okay, so sure, she’d like first-hand furniture, she’d like to be frivolous. Problem is, she’s grateful for her lot in life.

When the local former fallen woman dies (have I mentioned that I hate prologues? The one included in this novel didn’t change my mind, though it did make me think that the dead former prostitute would have made a great novel herself), the two women find themselves the recipients of her jewelry. The town assumed the gaudy items were fake. That’s the problem with amateurs. They can’t identify the good stuff without a road map. Poppy and Bren are heirs to a good sum of money. Not winning-the-lottery money, but enough. Enough to make a difference.

In your typical small-town romance (as you well know), it is common for everyone to know everyone. I mean, you can’t walk down Main Street without someone being in your business. But that’s really a fantasy, isn’t it? Poppy and Bren have a vague awareness of one another, but, until they’re thrown together in a weird way, have never really spoken. Even after they learn of their legacy, they don’t speak to each other. Why would they? Different worlds, different people

Except they have this strange link. They find themselves reacting to the bequest in a similar fashion – getting the jewels appraised, visiting Maude Rose’s empty apartment (which she’s tasked them with doing something with, what, that’s their problem), wondering what to do with the money. There’s one big difference. Poppy discusses her largesse with Web, her boss. Bren keeps quiet. She knows it’s wrong to keep the news from her husband, but she can’t get the words out of her mouth.

Are you going to read this book? Because I’m heading into spoiler region and I hate to ruin your read. Stop now (oh, don’t really, you know that I am sensitive). It’s not about what I say, it’s about how Greene tells the story.

In the course of coming to grips with what they’ve received, the two women form a friendship. It’s rocky, it’s painful, it’s actually good reading. I’m going to start with Bren, totally messing up my symmetry (you’ll forgive me, I know). Bren suffered one of those horrible romance novel traumas that, in the right setting, would be downright Gothic. Her mother was killed in an accident and her father was permanently (and expensively) disabled. In swoops the local minister who pulls the right strings to get the older man into a rehab facility. This leaves Bren grateful and indebted.

I believed that she was completely sincere in her faith. This, you know, is something that I don’t often get when I read so-called inspirational romance. The protagonist are often to much caricature. They’re like the perfect Christian, but only if the perfect Christian is a puppet. Real people have real conflict.

Greene had to play her issues of faith from two perspectives and remained true to her characters. I’m not big on blind faith and it was refreshing (refreshing!) to see religion treated with both sincerity and indifference and all the points in between in a novel. Bren is truly religious. Poppy is not. Good Christians are revealed to be as capable of human faults as non-believers. I think that Greene’s point was pretty basic: it’s not what you say, it’s what you do.

Bren is trapped in a bad situation. Her husband is angry, very angry. He’s able to maintain the façade of dedicated man of the cloth in public, but he resents his wife and it grows through the story. Greene offers an explanation, but, bottom line, he’s got anger issues and Bren has to, over the course of the novel, find the strength to say “no more”. Poppy, being her foil (in the best sense of the word), confronts Bren about her bruises, pushing when her friendship isn’t assured.

It goes both ways. It takes longer for Bren to speak out about Poppy’s own fears about really going for what she wants. When it comes to Poppy, Bren can be brutally honest. With Bren's plotline, Greene took a safe, though emotionally difficult, route. With Poppy, she went for broke. Poppy is not beautiful. She’s not pretty. She is, if you have to label it in a positive way, jolie laid (man, I hope I remember high school French properly). And she’s determined to fix what’s wrong with her.

Poppy decides to get plastic surgery. Heck, surgery with a spa experience. Massages, personal shopper, pampering beyond belief. She’s going to be, well, not beautiful, but not ugly and she’s going to treated like a queen. After much avoidance, she tells Web the real reason that she’s taking some time off. She needs to give the guy a break – her cryptic approach leads him to think it’s cancer or something equally horrific.

Here’s the thing (and I’ve decided you’re totally going to read this one, so now I’m trying to be all circumspect): Web doesn’t see Poppy like she sees herself. He makes that clear. And she has the surgery anyway. It doesn’t change her basic esteem issues – we all know those are not changed by a nose job or highlights – but it does make her focus on what makes her happy.

Yes, that would be the twice-divorced Web. This ain’t your mother’s Harlequin, if you know what I mean.

That Web and Poppy, uh, get it on after surgery felt natural. You know that he’s crazy about her, no matter how she looks. But she’s not crazy about herself, and that’s the main conflict. But Greene turns it into a issue of commitment before the commitment issue is well-established as a problem. I wasn’t super-happy with Greene’s shorthanding of Poppy and Web’s conflict because they had such a strong, open, grown-up characterization. I mean, I don’t mind reading between the lines, but I thought that more attention should have been given to developing the obstacle.

This is the problem with trying to cram two full stories into a single novel of limited word count. Both Bren and Poppy could have carried a full-length book on their own. With more time, Greene could have given each of them more justice. She could have given the deceased Maude Rose, whose love story with the equally deceased Bobby Ray, more character.

This was a big story made small. That Greene made me forego an afternoon nap in the hammock is a testament to her skill. I worried and cringed and rolled my eyes at these characters. I felt like Poppy found herself in a believable way. I thought that Bren’s path was more predictable, but I liked Bren very much. As the women forged a friendship, they also forged an honest relationship. If your friends can’t tell that you were prettier when you were uglier, who can?

In other words, what I’m saying is that Jennifer Greene took a lot of the elements that make me cranky about romance – overly saccharine scenarios, too much simpatico between female characters, glorified small town setting – and made them both familiar and unique. Greene isn’t writing satire; she’s writing about the world people inhabit.

Am I going to take a chance on another Next? Wow, that’s hard to say. I mean, I might have a craving for Chinese noodles and need a book. But there were other Next novels on the rack. And I did pick them up and read the back cover. And they seemed like just we keep thinking they’re like. As in, no, probably not.

But I was pleasantly surprised with Sparkle. I don’t know why I couldn’t confess my secret earlier…

You can find Jennifer Greene here. You can buy Sparkle here or here (can I just say that Barnes and Noble has a really bad search engine? Really.). You can write back below.

Love,

Kassia

PS – I now know that Newfoundlands are really nice dogs. Also big. Just in case you were wondering.