I remembered Book 1 of the Knitting in the City series as utterly charming – I can’t resist a tall dark and handsome grump brought low by a dorky heroine, and Quinn & Janie delivered for me. I intended to reread this one alone, review it, and then get back to The Stand (I make so many inconvenient promises to myself, and this “reread before watching the new series” is bang on form), but found myself in the middle of a Total Rereid of the whole series instead.
We meet Janie on what definitely ranks as one of the worst days of her life, newly single and fired from her not-quite-dream job, she’s escorted from her office by the hottest security guard in the building. Janie builds her personal protective wall (what? don’t you have one? mine is constructed of routine) out of random facts, and while that sounds like it might cross the line into irritating instead of quirky, for me it worked. Quinn is a man of mystery, and crankiness, but from the very beginning, it’s obvious that Janie glows for him – for all that she can’t see it, he’s smitten, and never wavers.
I find every romance novel I read veers somewhat into the formulaic – there’s got to be a HEA, there will be a meet cute of one kind or another, there will be some sort of incident that threatens the relationship at around 67% (per the kindle). I like that; I enjoy knowing that while I might cry, this isn’t A Little Life.
What it comes down to in the end is the quality of the storytelling and the characters, and Penny Reid’s have stuck with me, and charmed me twice now. The characters are richly detailed enough that you can see the potential for the rest of the series right from the first book, and all of them are just fun to hang out with.