Title: Mulberry Moon
Author: Catherine Anderson
Series: Mystic Creek #3
Suspend your disbelief and you’ll enjoy this book
Sissy Bentley wants nothing more than to run a successful business and leave her impoverished past behind her. She is not in the market for a man; men only got friendly with her if they wanted something, usually one specific thing, and she learned a long time ago that she owed them nothing and needed nothing from them.
When Ben Sterling begins to frequent her cafe and shows interest in her, she gives him a shoulder so cold the furnace kicks in. But then her chickens escape, and she doesn’t have time to round them up, run the cafe, and build them a better coop. Ben offers his help, no strings attached—which she doesn’t believe for a minute. But unless she wants to lose her investment in the chickens or disappoint her clientele, she has no choice but to accept his help.
As crises continue to arise, she comes to rely on Ben’s support…and waits for the other shoe to drop. Because there is no way he wants only for which he asks—her love.
When I finished the book, I had the impression that I liked it. I liked the characters. I liked the simple (if unoriginal) plot. I liked the unusual and interesting events that carried me through the rising action and conflict. But I’m looking through my notes now (I take book reviews very seriously), and I see that I noted over a dozen cons. Anderson is a favorite, so it breaks my heart, but I really believe she can do better.
I had problems with several elements of the story, big and microscopic. Some smaller things that had me shaking my head were:
I cannot believe the first line of this romance novel was, “With the taste of tacos lingering in his mouth, Ben…” I love tacos. I’m familiar with the taste that lingers. I usually have to brush my teeth and gargle Listerine to get rid of it, for it is not sexy, endearing, or exciting. That is not how I wanted to meet my hero. All that needed to be said was that he was leaving the Mexican restaurant, having eaten dinner there because he wasn’t comfortable going to Sissy’s cafe, no matter how much he would have preferred that.
Sissy was running her cafe all by herself. Like waiting, cooking, bussing, prepping, cleaning, bookkeeping—everything, all on her own. I guess it’s possible, if there were only half a dozen tables, but there had to have been more than a dozen, and in no way could she have been successful in real life. Or if she’d managed to do it all, she’d have quickly made herself ill from simple exhaustion, and then she definitely would have gone under. I didn’t buy it, but the situation was addressed in the story, so I made peace with it.
Sissy appreciated her customers having the initiative to go behind the counter to get what they needed. If she knew them well and trusted them, fine. Otherwise, most restaurant owners would prefer customers let the servers do their jobs. That’s part of the point of eating out—not having to make any effort. If she was too busy to see to her customers’ needs, that’s her own fault for trying to run the place herself, and she deserves for her customers to be disgruntled.
When Sissy started doing Ben’s books, I entirely expected her to figure out how much he’d spent building the coop and doing everything else for her. It was sort-of-not-really addressed at a point where I was supposed to believe she’d fallen in love with him enough that it didn’t matter to her. But she paid a fraction of what she would have if it hadn’t been Ben doing it all for her, and I believe it was in character for Sissy to freak out no matter how horny she was. But it never happened.
When they shared their first kiss, Ben knew she was nervous about it, so when she asked him to kiss her, he said it would probably be better if she initiated it. Then he says immediately after, “It doesn’t matter who takes the initiative, just as long as it happens.” I’m sorry, what? How does that make any sense? (Hint: It doesn’t.)
I’m amazed that Sissy, who was purported to be a fabulous cook on a budget, never made homemade Snickers bars instead of buying them. She could have saved some money, cut them as small as she wanted, and frozen the excess for herself if she didn’t want to serve them in the cafe. I LOVE Snickers, but I love the ones I make with my grandma the most.
The phone conversation between Sissy and Ben after they cat burgled was cheesy as HELL. I not only cringed, I laughed, too.
Onto the bigger issues.
Everyone was so damn nice. This book would not have worked, period, if everyone hadn’t been so cordial and accepting. I mean, the villain acted as befits a villain, naturally. Also, there were moments of negative emotion, but they were so mild as to almost be insincere, and I didn’t take them seriously. Everyone was friends, everyone got along, everyone loved Sissy and Ben, loved one another. All of their dispositions were sunny, and they all were unbelievably charitable. It was nice to imagine and heart-warming at face value, but it finally pissed me off at one particular point—the rat.
All right, it was cute at first when Sissy bonded with it. I’m sure there are people out there who find rats lovable (coughRonWeasleycough), and I’m sure some rodents make wonderful pets (Mickey Mouse doesn’t count). I didn’t particularly have a problem with her wanting to keep it as a pet, against all sage advice (including that of a veterinarian). If she was so desperately lonely that she wanted to risk her health, doom the health of the rat, and likely lose her business if it was discovered by the wrong people, that was her right to be stupid. But it fell far, far down the cliff of responsibility when Ben found the nest, as well as a whole rat family, and did nothing about it.
To his credit, he would have killed the beast if it had been left to him. To his credit, he did inform the lady who owned the property where he found the nest, but she feigned ignorance because she didn’t want to upset Sissy by having them all killed. (So damn nice.) Also to Ben’s credit, he warned the other shop owners—yes, this was in town—that pack rats had been seen and to take precautions. But even knowing how dangerous wild rodents could be; even after the pack rat had indirectly broken Sissy’s leg; even knowing pack rats tended to steal shiny things, which could happen to be very expensive items such as jewelry—or an expensive key fob, Ben!—despite all of those factors, no one had the balls to call the fricken exterminator. Some might call that criminal negligence. Snickers was not worth saving.
Also, there were times when the characters would overly explain, either in external or internal dialogue, their reasons for doing things, usually things that were controversial. It was as if Anderson was terrified of offending anyone and wanted to make the characters’ decisions (and therefore hers) seem completely reasonable and politically correct. … But that’s what makes characters remarkable—when they have qualities that make them unique, flaws that the audience can relate to. Happily-ever-after is a foregone conclusion, but that doesn’t mean everything has to work out perfectly.
But of all my nitpicks, I hated this the most.
So Sissy snaps her right tibia in two. It’s noted several times how painful the injury was. Now get this—as soon as Ben gets her home from the hospital, all she can think about is sex. She begs him to sleep with her.
What the beeeeep—
I’m not kidding. Now, I’ve never broken a bone, but I have had surgery a few times and been pretty sick. If I were Sissy, I, personally, would have had sex so far from my mind I would probably forget what it was. All I’d want to do is take my happy syrup and sleep, or if I couldn’t sleep, do something mindless, like watch TV, or read if I could concentrate that much. I wouldn’t have felt at all attractive until I was able to shower properly again. But not Sissy! She was so horny, not twenty-four hours after getting home from the hospital, that she was willing to be strapped down to the bed so she wouldn’t move while he screwed her. Bull. Shit. What’s worse—he almost did it! He, the guy who did everything he could for her, was so desperately horny that he considered being that reckless just to get off. (And actually, he suggested the strap, like he was doing her a favor.)
Even, even, if they’d managed to keep her injured leg still, that didn’t mean the movement of the rest of her body—or the bed—or him—wouldn’t jostle it and do further damage—which she wouldn’t feel until the happy juice had worn off. Oh, boy, she’d feel it then. And if that wasn’t crazy enough, Sissy was a virgin. Granted, few first-times are any good, but with a freshly broken leg? Did she LIKE doing things the hard way? I think I was supposed to find the whole thing romantic and funny, but all I could think was, “Jesus Christ, do not do it. I beg you, do not have sex or I will hide this book in a box in a dark corner under the stairs and never speak of it again.” They didn’t, thank God, or Sissy would have been right to think crazy ran in her family. (If you’re going to pay for a doctor’s advice, you should probably listen to them. They know a few things.)
Well, with all that, I think I’ve provided sufficient character sketches. I have to say, though, I did like Sissy, Ben, Finn the Australian shepherd, the other critters, all the cafe regulars, all the Sterlings, etc. They were good people, and I wish people did have such friendly, generous dispositions. The world would be such a better place. Maybe. I especially liked the vet, Jack Palmer, as well as Drake Mullin, the pharmacist. I’d love to see them get together with the Sterling girls (if they’re legal; I can’t remember how old the girls are). I vote those stories next.
All right, wrapping up with writing and style. I noticed a few typos, which is to be expected. One really threw me, though—when Ben said, and I quote, “I really grateful your help.” I’m guessing during editing or print “I really appreciate your help” got crossed with “I’m really grateful for your help.” No big deal. Gave me a giggle.
What is a big deal is that the story has very little energy. It’s fun and just interesting enough to keep my attention (at first, anyway), but while Sissy and Ben’s relationship progresses at a relatively realistic pace, the story trudges a bit. It’s like driving through a snow storm that hasn’t risen to blizzard conditions yet—you can see well enough and aren’t afraid of losing control, but though you keep a steady pace, it seems to take forever to reach your destination. The first half, maybe even the first two-thirds, were fine—but then Sissy breaks her leg and it all kind of goes to pot. I swear most of my notes (the cons) were picked out of the second half.
That said, the book was several chapters longer than it needed to be. The chunk between Sissy getting to the ER and Ben learning to run the cafe could have been significantly trimmed and slimmed with some concentrated revision. We didn’t need to see Ben’s interactions in the hospital, nor did we need to witness every minute of him nursing Sissy the first few days. The things that might have wrongly convinced Anderson and the editors those parts were necessary are the lust between the two and Sissy’s telling him about her past. The former was just…no (see above), and I’d have appreciated the latter more if Sissy had said it when she was sober. That whole section could have been summed up in a few paragraphs of exposition, and I think the story would have been stronger.
Overall, if you’re not nearly as picky or critical as I am and can enjoy fiction for what it is, I promise you’ll enjoy this book. 🙂
