A Night Like This by Julia Quinn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I love Julia Quinn books as immensely satisfying “mind candy,” whenever I need a break from more serious reading. Her characters are generally well developed, the plots are interesting, and the dialogue is always witty.
“A Night Like This” continues the saga of the Smythe-Smith family, mostly known for the tone deaf musical performances the family put on every year.
I had mixed feelings about this book. As always, the dialogue was clever and witty. The heroine was unusual for this genre, in that she was of the gentry, sullied her name and became a governess. I like that. And the plot was more complex than is typical for this genre. I like that as well. But I had some difficulties about the hero. He was nice enough but surprisingly two dimensional for a Julia Quinn hero. There was nothing to dislike about him, but he wasn’t well fleshed out enough to really like him either. He was, well, boring.
For Julia Quinn fans, the book is satisfying enough, but it is certainly not the strongest of her works. For those who are looking for an introduction to her work, I would start with her Bridgerton series, which really is lots of fun (especially the earlier books).