Champagne and Lemon Drops by Jean Oram

Narrated by Cris Dukehart

Champagne and Lemon Drops is a tale of a young woman, Beth Wilkinson, about to marry the love of her life and settle happily into her dream of a life of domesticity with her fiancé Oz. But when Oz suddenly questions his job, his life and their future, Beth’s plans and dreams are thrown away like old candy. Like it or not (and she emphatically does not), Beth is thrust into a nightmare of a midlife crisis, in the midst of the prying and opinionated neighbors of the small town – surely its own level of hell. As she is struggling to balance, Beth catches the eye of an imminently eligible doctor, Nash, and she finds the future she has always dreamed of within her grasp. So why isn’t she happy?

I found myself asking that a lot. Why isn’t Beth happy? What did she even like about Oz in the first place? And do I even like Beth, Nash or Oz enough to finish the book? The answer was, if I hadn’t planned to write a review, I wouldn’t have finished.

I have seen many male characters go through a life crisis with a lot of angst or human frailty; however nothing keeps me from bonding to a protagonist faster than whining and self-pity. The author seemed to intersperse the whining with jarring notes of what was supposed to be humor, yet seemed just … awkward. And the word choices (such as Beth “chirping” in the middle of a tense moment) were as uncomfortable as the neighbors’ innuendoes. Poor Beth. I would have left town immediately.

I actually liked Nash, the proper town doctor, a lot more than I did Oz, even though Nash could tend to be a little stuffy. At least he didn’t whine.

What really lost me was how Beth kept wanting to be in love and saved by a guy, instead of standing on her own two feet. She yo-yoed back and forth from one guy to another so quickly, that it was apparent a relationship with a man was her sole definition of happiness. The best romances, to me, are the ones where the characters learn to stand on their own and use their brains and skills.

Cris Dukehart’s narration just emphasized the uncomfortable pacing of the alternating self-discovery angst and stilted humor. Although her spoken dialogue and phrasing was fine, her non-dialogue narration had such flat intonation and odd intermittent pauses, that I was (maybe fortunately) distracted from the story. I ended up buying the kindle version of the story to see if I would ever like Oz, and to skip the narration.

Not really what you are going for in an audiobook.

I did like Dukehart’s voice of Beth – she has a likeable, easy-going tone for a female lead. Her males sounded a little too much like a woman speaking with a cold, and her old folks sounded somewhat too creaky.

I am a sucker for sweet romances, happily ever after, life in a small town and even lemon drops. But I just can’t recommend this one.

Victoria

Narration: C-

Book Content: D

Steam Factor: You can play it out loud

Violence: None

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Jean Oram

Champagne and Lemon Drops was provided to AudioGals by the author for review.