Julia Quinn
Just Like Heaven
Avon, May 31, 2011, $7.99
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
Anyone who has ever read a Julia Quinn novel knows the Smythe-Smiths. Countless heroes and heroines have been made to suffer through the annual musicales put on by the Smythe-Smith girls, a singularly untalented quartet of musicians—no matter the year or which four girls comprise the quartet.
From past books, we know the audience members' thoughts, the reaction they have to the assault on their ears, their great desire to be anywhere but at the concert. But what are those poor girls thinking? Do they know how bad they are? How can they get up there and aurally attack their audience members as they do? Well, in Just Like Heaven we get to find out, against the backdrop of a fairly standard falling-in-love-with-your-big-brother's-best-friend romance.
It is a long-standing tradition in the prolific Smythe-Smith family that the young ladies learn an instrument and participate in the annual musicale. In fact, once in the quartet, each girl is sentenced to remain a member until she marries, at which time another cousin is drafted into the family tradition of Musical Mayhem. Who are, and what are the feelings of, the present quartet?
Daisy plays the violin. This is her first year in the quartet and she thinks they sound fabulous.
“Why is everyone complaining? This is exciting! We get to perform. Do you know how long I have been waiting for this day?”
Unfortunately, she's very, very bad, and very, very clueless about it.
Sarah, pianoforte, is pretty bad and knows it. The musicale is the lowlight of the season for her. She is even contemplating engineering an elopement before the concert date to get out of playing.
“Can't we be the first set of cousins to mutiny? Can't we simply just say no?”
No, they cannot.
Iris is actually very good on the cello, but this doesn't matter a bit, for the other three are so bad, that, no matter how well Iris does, it will be a humiliating experience. When exhorted to smile during a rehearsal, she says,
“It is difficult to feign good humor when all I wish is to throw myself through the window.”
Poor dear.
Honoria, violinist and our heroine, knows she has no talent, but kind of likes the whole family tradition of the thing. Nothing means more to Honoria than her family, even if that family makes a spectacle of itself once a year.
“We are Smythe-Smiths,” Honoria ground out, “and this is what we do.”
So she plasters a big smile on her face and gets on with it.
We get to know this group of young ladies filtered through the loving, though sardonic, eyes of Honoria. Our hero Marcus's reaction to the young ladies' performance and Honoria's loyalty to the family cause sheds much light on his personality and only enhances our own affection for the quartet. By the end of the book, they are more than simply the instigators of an Annual Abomination perpetrated upon the ton. They've become future heroines.
Cheryl Sneed reviews for Rakehell.com.
