Sunday, December 18, 2016

A Portrait of Emily PriceA Portrait of Emily Price by Katherine Reay


This was just an average book in which my feelings are neutral (hence the 3.5 stars.)

So we follow the main character, Emily Price who is an art restorer at an insurance company and gets to be called to do a job in Atlanta. There she meets an attractive chef, Ben who lives in Italy and has come to visit his brother for a while. Sparks fly, then fall in insta-love and get married within 2 weeks. Surprisingly (or not?) Emily takes up Ben on his offer to fly to Italy there with him and move into his house which is also a castle.

Nothing really happens here. There are so blockades, nothing tying Emily into knots in this story, or something to stop the speedy romance from happening. Struggles and dark times are what make the story come alive for me, and there was disappointingly nothing of that here. I couldn't feel excited about her love interest because although there was apparent love between them, I never felt the connection there nor did I feel connected to the characters themselves.

The thing is, I can tolerate a romance book, but I also like it to have a bit of variety. There were two sisters in this book who could have stepped out and shone if the author just let them shine a bit more. I desired more conversations with Emily and Ben's two strongest supporters, their sister, and instead the author made them look like a lacking cardboard of a character.

One thing that I could appreciate were the mentions of art and the artistic tastes of people in Italy and clients that Emily worked for previously. That was one of the only things that made me perk up in my seat while trying to flip through these pages. But other than that, everything including the characters and plot feel quite flat for me, and I just wasn't feeling this story.

*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.**

View all my reviews

No comments:

Post a Comment