Fools Rush In (by Janice Thompson)

This is yet another book that I downloaded free, some time ago, for my Kindle. I've been able to read quite a few of these random short novels in the past few weeks, mostly by authors I had not previously heard of. Janice Thompson is one of them.

'Fools Rush In' is said to be the first in the 'Bella Wedding' series, and I'm always happy to try the first in the series. These free offers are presumably made in the hope of enticing readers to buy subsequent volumes, although I have never yet been tempted in that way.

This book is quite light-hearted, featuring primarily an Italian-American family who run a restaurant and a wedding business. Bella is the narrator, although there's a prologue at the beginning which sets the background - it didn't really add much, but was interesting in a low-key way. It also sets the style, which is quite informal. It's easier to get away with that with a first person narrator, although I found some of the informality rather irritating at times. A mild joke made once is mildly amusing; by the third or fourth repetition, it's becoming tedious.

Bella is part of a large extended family; she has three brothers and a sister, all rather different in her mind; but rather flat as characters, in my view. Bella herself is quite likable although she tends to be too introspective and is constantly worried about failure. Things do tend to go wrong, but not disastrously so.

Unsurprisingly there is a romance which runs through the story, alongside the main plot featuring the preparation for a cowboy-style wedding which Bella is preparing. But the romance runs its course in a straightforward and satisfactory way without problems, stresses, arguments or anything that one might expect in a story of this nature. Moreover, the young man involved in the romance appears in Bella's life due to a misunderstanding - but it's such an unlikely misunderstanding that I had to skip back several pages (not so easy in a Kindle) to see if I'd missed something. I don't think I had... and while it led to the rest of the story, I thought it decidedly odd. However, to say more would be a spoiler.

There are some caricatured cultural descriptions, as the Italian family gets to know a Southern cowboy style family, but although there re some snide reference to accents, it all goes remarkably smoothly. All the main characters are Christians: a couple of Catholics, a family of Methodists, and another family of charismatics. Overall it's pleasant, and light-hearted, and sometimes utterly bizarre (as with the attempted evangelisation of a foul-mouthed parrot).

But it wasn't really my style.  I found myself rolling my eyes far more than smiling. I didn't dislike the book, and it made a good light read. But there was very little conflict, and it was evident that everything was going to work out well; so that there wasn't really much of a story.

If you can find a free download, or pick it up in a charity shop, it's not a bad read for odd moments, or perhaps on holiday. But I wasn't inspired to buy any of the sequels.

Review copyright 2018 Sue's Book Reviews