What with all that has been happening these last jam-packed months Bewildered Heart almost forgot there was the second in a Special Moments Two-in-One to read. After the misanthropic joy of Once Upon a Wedding what would its complimentary companion offer to counter-balance the romance, comedy, self-employment and bourgeois-bashing of Stacy Connelly's modern fairytale? Would there be dark dramas and the glorification of consumerism, or would Nancy Robards Thompson fail to subvert convention with a contrived tale of secret identities to the backdrop of resplendent luxury? With a title such as Accidental Princess that is anybody's guess, but now, with the initial three chapters stared at and understood, Bewildered Heart can ascertain in which direction the life of one struggling single mother is headed. Why are there are so many accidental princesses wandering the world of romance fiction nowadays? Is it because there are so many intentional princes without brides?
Where more suitable to learn such answers to such questions than with the potted history of a fictional royal family from a fictional island that kind of exists. In the world of Thompson's cursory research St. Michel is an independent Mediterranean island overseen by the powerful, albeit fictional, King Bertrand. Decades ago his eldest daughter had fallen for the glamorous, albeit fictional, rock star Nick Morrison. Facing scandal Bertrand had forced Princess Sylvie to give birth to her baby in a fictional country not dissimilar to France named France, before sending the child away to the United States to grow up in obscurity. Shortly thereafter, Sylvie and Nick had attempted a family reconciliation only to perish in a plane crash. Later Princess Celine died in a road accident and her brother, Prince Thibault, lost his life in a diving disaster further hence. Now, in whichever fictional year the novel takes place in, Prince Antoine, wife Leanna, children and assorted guards have met their fates in a tragic fire. For the somehow still employed head of security Luc Lejardin either the House of Founteneau is cursed or an ageing procrastinator has been murdering the King's offspring until none remained.
Meanwhile, in a small town in North Carolina Sophie Baldwin has taken her office's Dress Down Friday to heart by going to work as a jar of mustard. What with her costume and irritable daughter Savannah to worry about it is no surprise Sophie turns up twenty minutes late for her Social Services desk job. While her completely reasonable boss takes these numerous breaches of contract with patient good humour Sophie is stunned by the bitchiness of her superior. After suggesting a subplot involving Laura Hastings that may well be forgotten about Sophie is called home by her frantic daughter with news of a French invasion. When she arrives she discovers a very handsome foreigner on her doorstep, the spitting image, in fact, of actor Oliver Martinez, because Thompson finds describing things tiresome. There Sophie hears the news that every women longs to hear, that she is the secret love child of an European royal dynasty and must be whisked away to a life of idle indulgence, castles, sea, sun and serfs.
Sensing what sounds like an elaborate and breathlessly well-executed confidence trick Sophie dismisses her so-called parents and the suited bodyguards to panic over finding her fourteen year-old daughter in bed with a tattooed ruffian nicknamed Tick. With problems piling up and only one possible way to solve her every problem in a matter of seconds, Sophie finds the time to ponder how her life became so complicated. As with the majority of divorced single parents, Her Highness was once married and without child. Once Savannah was born the marriage grew apart and one day Frank left for the sunny climes of California and the sun-kissed charms of teenage girls. This may have been the point where Sophie's self-esteem plummeted and she began to closely resemble store-brand condiments. Nevertheless, as infamous ladies man and observant noticer of things Luc Lejardin notices observantly, Sophie Baldwin remains a luminously attractive women with a quite splendid chin. How or why this is possible due to the ravages of time, stress and seasoning, however, is kept mysterious, due to Thompson's insistence that writing about stuff distracts from endless recalling of back-story.
Forward momentum is threatened when Sophie refuses to drop her responsibilities and abscond to an island that her education tells her does not exist. This rejection of regal duties forces King Bertrand himself to fly all the way from nowhere to a private airport near Washington D.C. in a desperate bid to keep the world's media from questioning his unexpected visit. Somewhat presumptuously this is where Chapter Three concludes, leaving the reader with the barest understanding of character motivations and story development and only the slightest inclination to begin Chapter Four. As contemporary twists on classic fairytale tropes go, Accidental Princess is certainly an improvement on the faux-Cinderella generics of Once Upon a Wedding. Sophie Baldwin is portrayed as an unlikely woman for picturebook romance, having been cast aside by one husband, dismissed by her daughter, criticised at work and constantly mocked by herself as a frumpy, pale imitation of her youthful loveliness. Only an idealised Gallic Adonis seems to have the ability to see through all visible evidence to the sexually alluring creature lurking beneath.
There are a handful of minor obstacles for the couple to overcome before they can rule a fictional country, however, yet most of these troubles can be fixed through vocabulary-updating. Savannah's ungrateful attitude and worrying misstep of scantily-clad bed-sharing were resolved during a mother daughter heart-to-heart discussion Thompson decided against writing. Still, any additional fears of Savannah and Tick's blossoming romance can be handled by a stepdad well-versed in gunplay and martial arts. The overwhelming concern, at least for Luc, is his own family's reputation, destroyed by his late father's scheming second wife. How could a man tasked with protecting a family, now mostly dead, who bears the disgraced and hard to pronounce Lejardin name marry into the House of Founteneau? Naturally, this conundrum can be solved by all parties acting reasonably, but in the land of Mills & Boon it usually requires two hundred pages of shoe-shuffling and sex before this decision is reached. Most importantly, of course, there is the small matter of a serial killer on the loose, who takes up to ten years to meticulously orchestrate fatal mishaps? In eight years time might Sophie and Savannah board a train, switch on a kettle or light a cigarette in a seemingly well-ventilated room and could Luc forgive himself for their untimely demises as easily as he shrugged off the others?
Much will depend on how Thompson wishes to play with the tropes of the genre. The damsel-in-distress and protector romance is something of a worn-out archetype, and the predictable introduction of single parent with troubled child expected of Special Moments does little to reinvigorate the formula. There are possibilities for originality, not least Sophie's commitment to her country, work and family, and thus a rejection of patriarchal pressure to submit to the princess fantasy. Do the glimpses of Mary Matthews, Mr. Carlo and Laura suggest an alternative direction for the novel? Will Luc prove a true twenty-first century hero by staying in North Carolina and fighting for the woman he loves on her terms? This is plausible, but highly unlikely for a book entitled Accidental Princess, just as it appeared improbable that Once Upon a Wedding would end with Kelsey prioritising her business over a dreamy man wearing jeans. No doubt circumstance and luck will allow Sophie to achieve all of her most fantastical dreams without sacrifice, as all heroines should, thus fulfilling the publisher's mantra that what makes Mills & Boon successful is what makes story-telling amateurish.
Where more suitable to learn such answers to such questions than with the potted history of a fictional royal family from a fictional island that kind of exists. In the world of Thompson's cursory research St. Michel is an independent Mediterranean island overseen by the powerful, albeit fictional, King Bertrand. Decades ago his eldest daughter had fallen for the glamorous, albeit fictional, rock star Nick Morrison. Facing scandal Bertrand had forced Princess Sylvie to give birth to her baby in a fictional country not dissimilar to France named France, before sending the child away to the United States to grow up in obscurity. Shortly thereafter, Sylvie and Nick had attempted a family reconciliation only to perish in a plane crash. Later Princess Celine died in a road accident and her brother, Prince Thibault, lost his life in a diving disaster further hence. Now, in whichever fictional year the novel takes place in, Prince Antoine, wife Leanna, children and assorted guards have met their fates in a tragic fire. For the somehow still employed head of security Luc Lejardin either the House of Founteneau is cursed or an ageing procrastinator has been murdering the King's offspring until none remained.
Meanwhile, in a small town in North Carolina Sophie Baldwin has taken her office's Dress Down Friday to heart by going to work as a jar of mustard. What with her costume and irritable daughter Savannah to worry about it is no surprise Sophie turns up twenty minutes late for her Social Services desk job. While her completely reasonable boss takes these numerous breaches of contract with patient good humour Sophie is stunned by the bitchiness of her superior. After suggesting a subplot involving Laura Hastings that may well be forgotten about Sophie is called home by her frantic daughter with news of a French invasion. When she arrives she discovers a very handsome foreigner on her doorstep, the spitting image, in fact, of actor Oliver Martinez, because Thompson finds describing things tiresome. There Sophie hears the news that every women longs to hear, that she is the secret love child of an European royal dynasty and must be whisked away to a life of idle indulgence, castles, sea, sun and serfs.
Sensing what sounds like an elaborate and breathlessly well-executed confidence trick Sophie dismisses her so-called parents and the suited bodyguards to panic over finding her fourteen year-old daughter in bed with a tattooed ruffian nicknamed Tick. With problems piling up and only one possible way to solve her every problem in a matter of seconds, Sophie finds the time to ponder how her life became so complicated. As with the majority of divorced single parents, Her Highness was once married and without child. Once Savannah was born the marriage grew apart and one day Frank left for the sunny climes of California and the sun-kissed charms of teenage girls. This may have been the point where Sophie's self-esteem plummeted and she began to closely resemble store-brand condiments. Nevertheless, as infamous ladies man and observant noticer of things Luc Lejardin notices observantly, Sophie Baldwin remains a luminously attractive women with a quite splendid chin. How or why this is possible due to the ravages of time, stress and seasoning, however, is kept mysterious, due to Thompson's insistence that writing about stuff distracts from endless recalling of back-story.
Forward momentum is threatened when Sophie refuses to drop her responsibilities and abscond to an island that her education tells her does not exist. This rejection of regal duties forces King Bertrand himself to fly all the way from nowhere to a private airport near Washington D.C. in a desperate bid to keep the world's media from questioning his unexpected visit. Somewhat presumptuously this is where Chapter Three concludes, leaving the reader with the barest understanding of character motivations and story development and only the slightest inclination to begin Chapter Four. As contemporary twists on classic fairytale tropes go, Accidental Princess is certainly an improvement on the faux-Cinderella generics of Once Upon a Wedding. Sophie Baldwin is portrayed as an unlikely woman for picturebook romance, having been cast aside by one husband, dismissed by her daughter, criticised at work and constantly mocked by herself as a frumpy, pale imitation of her youthful loveliness. Only an idealised Gallic Adonis seems to have the ability to see through all visible evidence to the sexually alluring creature lurking beneath.
There are a handful of minor obstacles for the couple to overcome before they can rule a fictional country, however, yet most of these troubles can be fixed through vocabulary-updating. Savannah's ungrateful attitude and worrying misstep of scantily-clad bed-sharing were resolved during a mother daughter heart-to-heart discussion Thompson decided against writing. Still, any additional fears of Savannah and Tick's blossoming romance can be handled by a stepdad well-versed in gunplay and martial arts. The overwhelming concern, at least for Luc, is his own family's reputation, destroyed by his late father's scheming second wife. How could a man tasked with protecting a family, now mostly dead, who bears the disgraced and hard to pronounce Lejardin name marry into the House of Founteneau? Naturally, this conundrum can be solved by all parties acting reasonably, but in the land of Mills & Boon it usually requires two hundred pages of shoe-shuffling and sex before this decision is reached. Most importantly, of course, there is the small matter of a serial killer on the loose, who takes up to ten years to meticulously orchestrate fatal mishaps? In eight years time might Sophie and Savannah board a train, switch on a kettle or light a cigarette in a seemingly well-ventilated room and could Luc forgive himself for their untimely demises as easily as he shrugged off the others?
Much will depend on how Thompson wishes to play with the tropes of the genre. The damsel-in-distress and protector romance is something of a worn-out archetype, and the predictable introduction of single parent with troubled child expected of Special Moments does little to reinvigorate the formula. There are possibilities for originality, not least Sophie's commitment to her country, work and family, and thus a rejection of patriarchal pressure to submit to the princess fantasy. Do the glimpses of Mary Matthews, Mr. Carlo and Laura suggest an alternative direction for the novel? Will Luc prove a true twenty-first century hero by staying in North Carolina and fighting for the woman he loves on her terms? This is plausible, but highly unlikely for a book entitled Accidental Princess, just as it appeared improbable that Once Upon a Wedding would end with Kelsey prioritising her business over a dreamy man wearing jeans. No doubt circumstance and luck will allow Sophie to achieve all of her most fantastical dreams without sacrifice, as all heroines should, thus fulfilling the publisher's mantra that what makes Mills & Boon successful is what makes story-telling amateurish.
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