Book Review: Just Like Heaven by Julia Quinn

Title: Just Like Heaven
Series: Smyth-Smith Quartet #1
Author: Julia Quinn
Published: May 31, 2011
Genre(s): Romance: Historical
Page Count: 374
Rating:

Summary from Goodreads:

Marcus Holroyd is the best friend of Honoria Smythe-Smith's brother, Daniel, who lives in exile out of the country. Marcus has promised to watch out for Honoria and takes his responsibility very seriously. But he has his work cut out for him when Honoria sets off for Cambridge determined to marry by the end of the season.

Honoria Smythe-Smith is:

A) a really bad violinist
B) still miffed at being nicknamed "Bug" as a child
C) not in love with her older brother's best friend
D) all of the above

Marcus Holroyd is:

A) the Earl of Chatteris
B) regrettably prone to sprained ankles
C) not in love with his best friend's younger sister
D) all of the above

Together they:

A) eat quite a bit of chocolate cake
B) survive a deadly fever and the world's worst musical performance
C) fall quite desperately in love

It's Julia Quinn at her best, so you know the answer is . . .

D) all of the above

In today’s historical romance market, Julia Quinn is known for her light-hearted, comedic romances. “Fluffy” is probably the adjective to use, but I think that brings with it the connotation that fluffy books are somehow “less than” other books. So, I won’t say that. Instead, let’s just say that Just Like Heaven is a sweet romance that doesn’t tug on too many heartstrings. It’s the bookish equivalent of snacking on jellybeans.

Personally, I like jellybeans. I love them. Yet somehow, I didn’t love Just Like Heaven. It wasn’t that the book was too silly or too fluffy or anything like that. Rather, I just really couldn’t get into the story, for a number of reasons.

For one thing, the Smythe-Smith quartet launches off of the massive popularity of Quinn’s Bridgerton series. Now, I’ve read all eight of those books, several years back. They were some of the first romance novels I’d ever read. Yet by the time I’d finished all eight novels, I thought I’d had more than enough Bridgertons for one lifetime. And now there are more. Some readers might say that you don’t need to read the Bridgerton series before you start the Smythe-Smith books; that’s probably true. But honestly after eight novels hearing about the terrible Smythe-Smith girls and their muscales, I didn’t want to hear anymore about the subject. And, unfortunately, the annual Smythe-Smith musicale is a central subject of Just Like Heaven. (This goes for other things—I didn’t want to see Lady Danbury or Colin again, yet there they were.)

I could, maybe, have gotten over the feeling that Quinn was needlessly beating a dead horse, except there were some other issues. For one thing, I didn’t really get into the rhythm of the story until around halfway or so. The first half of the book is really just a lot of supposedly-comic banter between Honoria, the female protagonist, and her cousins. I suppose it could have been amusing—this author is known for her banter—but it didn’t really seem to be furthering the plot, aside from over-emphasizing the fact that the Smythe-Smith girls are not musically gifted and really just want to get married and forget they ever heard of Mozart.

Eventually what happens is that Honoria and Marcus fall into a bit of a scrape, and Marcus breaks his leg and develops an infection. Because Marcus has no family left alive, Honoria is the one who nurses him back to health. That’s when I started to get into the groove of the story, but by then it was too late for Just Like Heaven to really become a favorite. And while the scenes between Honoria and a recuperating Marcus were cute, eventually it was back to London for the musicale, and I kind of lost track of the plot. I think there was maybe a sex scene after the musicale? But to be honest, I was bored, so I’m not sure if they just kissed a lot or actually did the deed.

So, yeah. This was a breezy read, but maybe too breezy. I skimmed right along the surface of Just Like Heaven without once making a connection to the story or the protagonists. Considering the fact that I was already tired of Bridgertons, I think it’s safe to say that I should skip all the Bridgerton-adjacent novels that have succeeded them. Maybe one day Julia Quinn will pick a new family to write about.