Smart Bitches, Trashy Books | Romance Novel Reviews | Come for the Dominican Bitches, Stay for the Man Titty

by SB Sarah • Tuesday, January 15, 2008 at 05:05 AM

Our Grade:

Title: The Tycoon Meets His Match
Author: Barbara Benedict
Publication Info: Silhouette December 2007, ISBN: 0373248725
Genre: Contemporary Romance

This book begins with the most doofy premise in a flashback, I literally rolled my eyes and thought that there was NO way I was going to finish it, much less enjoy reading all these categories that insist on making me roll my eyes and snort.

Trae, the heroine, and four of her friends are in college, indulging in a candlelight oath ceremony wherein they promise to fulfill their personal goals before getting married. The ceremony ends with them all saying in unison, “When it comes to marriage, just say no!”

Oh, for God’s sake. Note to author: making me think of Nancy Reagan = total romance buzzkill.

Enter the story: Trae is a bridesmaid at her friend Lucie’s wedding when Lucie goes flying out the door and runs away, leaving her groom, Rhys, at the altar. Rhys, the tycoon referenced in the title, is Lucie’s longtime neighbor and their families had intended them to marry for a long ass time. Trae, one of Lucie’s friends from Tulane, the same group of friends who promised to “Just say no!” runs after her, as does Rhys. They end up in Rhys’ rental car, driving to Lucie’s house in case that’s where she ran off to.

No such luck. Lucie is gone, and Rhys and Trae are equally determined to find her and make sure she’s ok. Lucie, it seems, is exceptionally wealthy but horribly neglected and controlled by her parents, and neither Rhys nor Trae believe she’ll be ok without her money, connections, or friends for long. Trae wants to make sure she’s ok; Rhys fully expects that yet again, he’ll rescue Lucie, talk her down from whatever panic she’s in, and persuade her to go through with their marriage as expected. That’s your key to Rhys right there: “as expected.”

The two of them team up, and suddenly, this book is much less about the tycoon referenced in the title, and is more about the chase, the travel, the adventure, the maddening mishaps, and in short, became one of my favorite types of romance, one that I haven’t read in a long, long time: The Road Trip Romance.

Oh, man, I enjoyed this book like Merde and Mon Dieu, to quote Nathalie Grey. Seriously. I dug it.

The tycoon, Rhys, is slowly divested of his comforts - his luggage, his suits, his Blackberry, his laptop, and his credit cards - leaving him with Trae, who is accustomed to winging it on a thin budget, and leaving him forced to allow his younger brother to assume the helm of the family company immediately before a very tricky and delicate merger or acquisition. That’s the thing with these tycoons, you know? You’re not really sure what they’re a tycoon of. But given the comments made by Trae and by Rhys, I’m assuming his family business is a diverse holding company of some sort, as they own a bunch of random stuff.

The title doesn’t at all do justice to the adventure of the book. They go from Miami to New Orleans to LA, back to New Orleans by car, then to St. Louis, and finally back home, and by isolating a strong, stubborn hero and a strong, stubborn heroine in the car, on a motorcycle, and in dingy hotel rooms together, the author allows each character to be truly revealed to the other. While they have years of assumptions to undo, they simultaneously have a hell of an attraction to address, and it was delicious, delightful reading.

I have to say, the names were a bit of a distraction. At one point, “Trae’s gaze went to Rhys,” and I mentally filled in Rhys saying to her, “BITCH YOU STOLE MY VOWEL.”

There were also the secondary characters who didn’t add much except convenient plot progression or development, and while I know that the category structure allows only for the primary protagonists, I always feel bereft of the secondary character’s stories, especially when they are resolved so easily. For example: Trae’s roommate is the inspiration for their “Just Say No!” vow in the opening scene, as she dropped out of college to marry some guy who beat the shit out of her. The JSN friends chipped in to get her on a bus to a shelter where Beaty McShit couldn’t find her, and when said roommate appears near the end of the story, she is miraculously healed and healthy from her abusive cycle relationship, now that she’s escaped from Beaty McShit and has had his daughter away from him. Yeah, because that’s not a complicated situation or anything. She’s just so beamingly healthy, like she could march up to the heroine and say, “I’m a plot device, and as such must wrap up my angst as neatly and inspirationally as possible! I’m only permitted a handful of pages by law, and I’m much too close to the end of your story to mess up the joyful ending by including any unresolved angst!”

Now that’s a guarantee that you don’t have to worry about someone. It’s like the opposite of the James Bond Ancillary Character Rule, wherein if a character shows pictures of his children to James Bond in ANY Bond film, that character is going to die suddenly and irrevocably, without question, usually in the next 5 minutes. The Harlequin Ancillary Angsty Character Rule, if after reading two books I can be permitted to make up a rule, would be the opposite: if a character in a precarious or vividly emotionally horrid situation appears hale and resolved at the end, count on that resolution, because extraneous angst is not permitted to intrude upon the protagonists’ happy ending.

Pat expressions of autonomy and perfectly rational runaway brides notwithstanding, I reveled in reading this book, and it went a long way toward reassuring me that my naughty prejudices about the category genre were very much unfounded. This book made me happy, and I thank Ms. Benedict for reminding me how much I love love LOVE a road trip romance, particularly since she did so with characters that were delightful and real.