Monday, March 11, 2013

Audiobook Review: Bed of Roses by Nora Roberts

Bed of Roses (Bride Quartet #2)
Author: Nora Roberts
Narrator: Angela Dawe
Published: October 27, 2010
Genre: chick lit
Audiobook: 8 discs (approx. 9 hours)
Source: borrowed from the library

My Rating: 3 stars

Synopsis (from GoodReads): As little girls MacKensie, Emma, Laurel, and Parker spent hours acting out their perfect make believe “I do” moments. Years later their fantasies become reality when they start their own wedding planning company to make every woman’s dream day come true. With perfect flowers, delicious desserts, and joyful moments captured on film, Nora Roberts’s Bride Quartet shares each woman’s emotionally magical journey to romance.

In Bed of Roses, florist Emma Grant is finding career success with her friends at Vows wedding planning company, and her love life appears to be thriving. Though men swarm around her, she still hasn’t found Mr. Right. And the last place she’s looking is right under her nose. But that’s just where Jack Cooke is. He’s so close to the women of Vows that he’s practically family, but the architect has begun to admit to himself that his feelings for Emma have developed into much more than friendship. When Emma returns his passion—kiss for blistering kiss—they must trust in their history…and in their hearts.


My Thoughts: The second in the series, Bed of Roses picks up where Vision in White left off, with four friends running this successful event planning business and Mac, one of the girls, recently engaged. It's an easy assumption that in each book, each of the four will find love for themselves. So, in this book, it's Emma the florist's turn. She falls for a friends that she's known for years, and he falls for her. But while she wants all the romance, he's more practical and yearns for space. They are electric together but that also leads to some problems, with everything working out for the best by the end of the novel.

It's a typical formula for Nora Roberts, which is why I enjoy her audiobooks so much. I know what I'm getting and it doesn't require too much attention, but it's still easy to get lost in. What really shines in this novel is the friendship among the four women. They are all so different but it's easy to see why they are all friends. Also, being able to see inside their business is so interesting. I don't even really need the romance because I love the idea of this successful business keeps me on my toes! All of the girls have a great rapport with one another and the dialogue between them is effortless and a joy to listen to.

The downside of this whole book for me was the end. You know that it's all going to work out perfectly for Jack and Emma, but they have this huge argument, which leads to them not talking for a few days. When they do talk, she says she doesn't want to see him in a romantic capacity anymore, which leads to him proposing, and her saying yes. I mean, could we please craft a weaker female character? This man treated her like crap, but he says "I love you", and she's back in his arms. It was so frustrating because there was no real resolution between the two, it just wrapped up very quickly.

I will finish this series, but this was a letdown after the first book in the series. I hope that the third book in this quartet is nothing like this one! 

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