Review by jemado -- Curve Couture by H M Irwing

[jemado]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Curve Couture" by H M Irwing.]

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1 out of 4 stars

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24-year old Claire has spent most of her adult life living in her sister Janice's shadow. Janice is a world-famous supermodel, and Claire serves as her agent. Living in this world, Claire is constantly reminded of her size-18 frame, and feels inferior to her sister in just about every way. She is shocked when Erin Robertson, former model-turned-agent, approaches her with a tantalizing offer: what if Claire became a model herself, with Erin representing her? Unable to resist an offer from her teenage crush, Claire accepts and is thrust into the dazzling world of professional modeling. Things quickly grow complicated when it becomes clear that Erin is interested in Claire's body not only professionally, but personally as well. What follows is a steamy love affair set against the backdrop of couture gowns, fancy parties, and beautiful people.

Curve Couture is a sexy romance filled with promise. Unlike some romance novels, this book doesn't tease the reader and wait until the final scene to allow the characters to get together. Likewise, they're not thrust into an overly-dramatic, tense situation that threatens their entire relationship. There is drama, but it's never so dire that you start to feel anxiety while reading. Some may prefer stories with a more heightened sense of conflict, but I found it refreshing to read a romance where the main characters weren't constantly being torn apart.

While the premise and overall story was interesting, I found the writing to be somewhat lacking. The story starts as nothing more than two characters having a physical love affair, but halfway through, the story takes a more romantic turn. There's nothing wrong with this, but it happens too abruptly, with absolutely no lead-in. There are so few moments of bonding between Claire and Erin that I found myself not really caring about their relationship. It felt as though a few more scenes would have been extremely helpful in bridging this gap in the narrative.

Likewise, characterization was spotty at best, with each character never seeming to have a fully formed identity. Claire alternates between being extremely self-conscious and uber confident, sometimes within the same scene. Rather than showing her grow and evolve throughout the story, she is a constant whirlpool of emotion. In this regard she's perhaps the perfect match for Erin, who is himself a hazy blur of mismatched personality traits. He can be incredibly sensitive one moment, yet switch to an aggressive, even sometimes frightening, individual two minutes later. I could never quite get a grasp on who these characters really were, and while they weren't necessarily flat, they didn't feel sharply focused enough, either.

Based on the story alone, I was willing to give this a favorable, if not glowing, review. However, I couldn't get past the fact that this book clearly didn't have a competent editor, if it had one at all. I found numerous spelling and grammatical errors, so much so that I gave up counting them after the first twenty pages because it was taking too long. Use of the wrong word ("assistance" instead of "assistants", "hear" instead of "here") was incredibly jarring while reading, and repeatedly interrupted the flow of the story. Chapters ended unexpectedly in the middle of a scene without being picked up again. At one point Claire's character even repeats the same statement twice in one scene, not for dramatic effect, but obviously due to a lack of editing. The numerous mistakes made it incredibly difficult to invest myself in the story, as I was continually distracted by the glaring errors I came across.

As is, I rate this 1 out of 4 stars. I was tempted to give it 2 stars, if only because I found the premise interesting for a romance novel. Unfortunately, the lack of editing left much to be desired. Claire and Erin's story was bogged down by stilted writing and poorly structured sentences, to the point that I could focus on little else within the novel. Had it been properly edited, this could have been a steamy, easy romance that would definitely have grabbed my attention. It simply lacks the polish and finesse needed to really draw the reader in to care about anything that happens.

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Curve Couture
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[Manang Muyang]

Hi, Jemado. It seems that your review is more interesting than the book. You gave a wonderful summary and an insightful commentary about the merits (and demerits) of the story. H.M. Irwing has several books available for review. I hope the others are much better than "Curve Couture."

I am looking forward to reading more of your reviews.