Monday, February 20, 2012

Book Review: Count Down to Love (Whitney Finalist)

Title: Count Down to Love
Author: Julie N. Ford
Enjoyment Rating: 5/10
Referral: Whitney Finalist
Source: Library Copy
Books I've read this year: 23

Count Down to Love starts with Kelly Grace Pickens, an aspiring Nashville country star, waiting to walk down the aisle for her wedding to her high school sweetheart. When he never shows up, Kelly Grace has to confront reality-- her fiance/manager has left her high and dry-- she's out of money and opportunities. So she decides to fill in as a last-minute replacement on a Bachelor-esque kind of show (her cousin is a producer). And once there, she (predictably) falls in love with that Bachelor.

Count Down to Love has all of the textbook things you'd expect in a modern romance-- there's the jilting, the spirited heroine finding her way, the inevitable spats between hero and heroine, the return of the jilter, misunderstandings, other women who get in the way, and, finally, a chance at love. The first few chapters were actually pretty well written, with clean and relatively tight (for a romance novel anyway) prose. But the book was riddled with tons of typos and misspelled words (Mason-Dickson line?), and if you've watched a few episodes of The Bachelor, you know exactly who the characters in the novel are and what their complications will be. It didn't surprise me in any way. I predict that Kelly and Dillon will last six months. Because we all know that despite the roses and the fantasy dates, the long-term survival rate of the relationships is in the toilet.

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