The Paler Shade Of Autumn by Jacquie Underdown
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Autumn Leone has a strange ability – when she touches people with her hands, she receives uncontrollable images of their life and desires.
When Autumn wins a holiday to India, a chance encounter with an aged women, who’s experienced horrific events, results in Autumn almost breaking down from the flood of images. She’s rescued by Jet Stark, a volunteer at a local orphanage, and whom she falls completely in love with. Refusing to be the cause of him leaving the orphange, Autumn reluctantly severs ties with him after only one night, and returns to her life in Australia without exchanging contact details.
Five years later Autumn runs into Jet at her workplace, and thinks it must be fate to have met him not once, but twice. Jet feels the same, but is involved with another woman. Can Autumn and Jet make a relationship work, or have they missed their chance? Why does Autumn have this ability, and what part does it have to play?
This is an excellently written romance between two very well developed characters with believable motivations and actions. It’s romance in the truer sense, as we watch Autumn and Jet attempt to build a relationship and life together, rather than just frenetic sex.
However there’s almost no plot, and I found Autumn’s talent more a piece of scenery, with it and the explanation for it not really changing the story at all – it could have been a good romance without them.
This combination left me reading it with great enjoyment, until I got to the end and discovered the lack of plot, leaving me very dissatisfied with the overall story.
If spiritual romance is your thing, then you’ll probably love this. If you’re after a bit more plot with a background romance, then maybe give it a miss.
prk.
Disclaimer: Whilst I read this as a judge for the 2013 Aurealis Awards, this review is my personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of any judging panel, the judging co-ordinator or the Aurealis Awards management team.
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