Another sweet romance by Heather Moore. This one is a loose Cinderella story: Jane, a beautiful but low income woman who owns her own cleaning business, meets Cameron, the son of one of the wealthiest families in town. Cameron’s nasty fiancee Crystal (stepsisters, anyone?) hires Jane to clean his house. But when Crystal becomes too overbearing, Cameron breaks up with her. Jane happens to be there to pick up the pieces, and despite the difference in their social standings, he begins to see her as an equal.
The main male character from “Worth the Risk” (book 1 in this series) is a peripheral character in this one, and that plus the setting are the only real connections between the books. But there is definitely a formula to the stories: the characters get together at about 60-70% through, but there’s an additional complication that threatens to drive a wedge between them. They resolve this, and (spoiler alert) then there’s a marriage proposal at the end.
I gave the story 3 1/2 stars only because even though it’s sweet and clean, I felt it lacked real characterization. Both Cameron and Jane have back stories–I know facts about their lives–but I didn’t feel like I knew them. They were simply attracted to each other, but some external obstacles kept them apart… until they didn’t. The stories that really get me are those with characters with a major flaw or a void they’re trying to fill, even if they don’t fully know it. That void, whatever it is, creates tension between the characters and raises the stakes. I wanted to understand why Cameron had always dated vapid, spoiled women like Crystal in the past, and I wanted to see him recognize that as an issue within himself and get over it so that he was able to consider Jane–not to simply “see” her right off the bat with no transformation on his part. If he could do that, why didn’t he date a woman like Jane to begin with? And there were hints that Jane resented people with money, but she gets over that awfully easily in the case of Cameron. Why does she resent people with money? What happened to her to make her judge people with wealth, and how does she get over that prejudice and realize that it was a false assumption on her part in order to give Cameron a chance?
If I’d felt like these issues had been explored and addressed, I would have given it 5 stars. But even without that, it’s still a light, entertaining read.
My rating: *** 1/2
