Tangled Up in Love by Heidi Betts
published by St. Martin's Press in February 2009
Ever since Dylan Stone beat Veronica Chasen out of a prime position at the Cleveland Courier, they've been bitter rivals, engaging in a very public war of words in their competing newspaper columns. They routinely challenge each other to go bungee jumping, white water rafting, or into tattoo parlors to see who will wimp out first. But Veronica's latest taunt may be Dylan's toughest assignment yet: She dares him to learn to knit. Dylan is not going to let something his grandmother can do scare him off. He's man enough to make a scarf-and attend Veronica's weekly knitting circle. But when the infuriatingly handsome Dylan shows up at the craft shop and charms all the ladies, Veronica starts to get all knotted up in something that feels a lot like love...Genre: contemporary romance
Series: Knit and Stick, book #1
The Story: I'm not going to summarize the book as the the back blurb does a good job for once :)
My Opinion: I got this book because the back blurb was cute :) Thought it would be interesting...
After reading it, sure, Tangled Up in Love was cute, but a bit bland. Not much happened... The beginning was quite interesting and promising. Ronnie and Dylan are rivals, one of the main reasons is because Dylan stole the columnist position at the Courier from Ronnie. Ronnie's new challenge is to ask Dylan to knit a scarf within a month. I thought the challenge was quite cute... and very challenging. My only issue is, I don't see how this challenge proves that one or the other has more guts - which was the whole point.
Then, the next thing you know, Ronnie and Dylan fall into bed... and while the sex is great, Ronnie wishes her partner was someone else. That was my biggest problem with this book... I understand that some people sleep together and regret it and they probably have good reasons for it... but in this case? I didn't get it. Ronnie was attracted to Dylan and he's basically a good guy... the only thing that stood between them is their so-called rivalry... but it's nothing major (not like a family feud or enemy). In a few words, I thought it was stupid, because Dylan was really good to her. If you think it's a mistake to sleep with this guy, fine... don't do it again. So I found her uncertainty annoying and thought it took her really long to figure it out :( Kind of ruined things...
Aside from that, both Ronnie and Dylan had struggles in their lives - Ronnie was afraid of poverty and Dylan dreamed of being a sport reporter, but was stuck being a columnist. I thought these obstacles were weak and easily resolved and basically served as filler. I don't know, Dylan and Ronnie spent quite a lot of time together and resolved their issues together, but something was missing... chemistry I think.
I liked the ending though. I thought it was very cute and liked that the next step in Ronnie and Dylan's relationship was moving in together and dating instead of a proposal and a promise of happy ever after. It made it much more realist.
Finally, I have to say, the little addition of magic was a little superfluous. Yes, paranormal romances are in style, but it doesn't mean touch of magic has to be added everywhere. This book would have been better without. Instead, those pages could have been used to focus more on Ronnie and Dylan. Also, knitting seems to be very "in" at the moment and it's kind of nice... but I think it's very hard to build a series or even a book completely around it ^_^; So far, the only series that really worked for me with this theme is the Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber.
By the way, I wonder if anyone can answer this question... I thought Tangled Up in Love was the first in a series, but I had the feeling I was missing something between Grace and Zach, two of the secondary characters.
My Grade: C-. Good effort, but something was missing between Ronnie and Dylan. Although the book focused on them and they spent almost all the time together, I didn't feel it :(
