A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger is a well written, funny and modern offering to the rom-com/chick lit genre. It doesn’t attempt to upset or change the genre and it sticks to the successful formula that has kept these kind of books going for so long. Although completely predictable, it still entertains and amuses the reader and is definitely worth a read.
Like many other heroines before her, Charley Lambert is a highly successful workaholic. At the start of the book we find her exhausted, but happy, having just arranged an engagement picnic for her best friend Sam. She has just been asked out on a date by her boss, who she has fancied for 7 years, and her company is about to enter into a highly successful launch, which she has organised. In short, everything was perfect until she falls over, breaking her leg in three (or wait, is it two) places.
Unable to go into work, she is forced to hand over to her second in command, who has made it obvious she wants Charley’s job. And just to really make things hurt, John, her boss, arrives at her hospital bed to announce he’s just got married. Used to scheduling every minute of her day, Charley is unable to relax during her enforced confinement and so settles for setting up her own business to keep herself busy. The business, is writing internet dating messages for people who are too busy, or who find themselves unable to communicate. The business quickly picks up and she finds herself writing letters to a man called William on behalf of her client Shelley. The only problem is, she begins to feel that William is more suited to herself than Shelley and when William wants to meet Shelley, Charley finds herself trying to sabotage the date.
I did enjoy this book, and the fact it ends so predictably doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of reading it. The character of Charley is written well, and with thoughtfulness. Her family are slightly more two-dimensional but they fit into the story and if they don’t come off as well as Charley in the writing, it’s more because they are less pivotal to the story and so perhaps were deemed not as worthy when being described. My only criticism, and this is a small one, is that on the back of the book, and in some chapters, Charley’s leg is described as being broken in three places. But when she first wakes up in the hospital, her doctor tells her two. This may be a mis-print or an attempt at confusing an already confused reader. Who knows, and it’s only minor but it still bugged me.
It was also refreshing to read a book that focused so positively on internet dating. Many of these kind of books either completely dismiss it, or use it as a comic focus, allowing the heroine to get involved in a series of unsuitable dates before, predictably, finding her Mr Right through other means. With more and more people using internet dating to meet people, it is inevitable it would find its way into fiction. And it makes an interesting point, for those people who may be living in modern times, with increasing technology, but who struggle to make themselves fully understood through emails and instant messaging.
The best thing about these kind of books is that you always know what to expect and as long as they are well written (which this book certainly is) and not too clichéd (again this book manages to inject fresh life into the genre) then you can lie back and relax whilst you read, knowing you won’t be disappointed by the ending.
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