Too Good to Be True (HQN)

Too Good to Be True was the first book I have read by Kristan Higgins and I really enjoyed it. The characters were all really well written and I enjoyed seeing how all the different storylines developed throughout the story as well as all the little twists that came up. I look forward to reading more by Kristan Higgins.

I was laughing out loud in public reading this book! One man asked what was so funny and I just held up the book and said, "Go get your own copy!" The characters were spawn of my own family tree. I felt like I was watching some of our old home videos!! The situation involving "the spoons" actually happened. Multi-generational hilarity. Although, I shed a tear or two also. Kristan Higgins hit an out of the park home run with Too Good To Be True!

I just read Too Good and it's KH's best one yet! I could not put it down once I picked it up. The romance was believable, funny and heartfelt. The family dynamics were painfully hilarious at times but also brought me to tears. She can really balance the humor and the emotions. This time the dog was a terrier and being a terrier owner she hit the nail on the head - priceless. Wait til you meet the grandmother Meme and the older sister - laugh out loud moments. I've read the other reviews and yes, a civil war buff was not the most relatable hobby but neither are shopaholics and New York counter terrorists agents - but I love reading books about those types of characters too. I guess my view point is the book was larger than the character's hobby for me. It was a great escape into a wonderfully developed world. PS - picture Daniel Craig as the hero and you'll love it all the more.:)

Kristan Higgins is my favorite contemporary romance author and this book is a great, fun read. Ms Higgins manages to make me laugh, cry, get me riled and have me cheering all within the space of a few hours. A few highlights for me: the witty dialogue, the unrepentantly grouchy grandmother who never reveals a heart of gold, the relationship between Grace and her two sisters, Nat and Marg. If you're looking for a romantic read about fun, flawed, real people (with some comedic crazy relatives and antics thrown in to spice it up), this book is a must. And don't forget her backlist - have already re-read Just One of the Guys twice and recommended this writer to all my friends.

Kristan Higgins' work is light, fresh, charming and not overworked--the romantic equivalent of good mint chocolate chip ice cream, delicious but not cloying. She is improving with each book and while I enjoyed each of her earlier works, this one really is the best of the bunch. Grace is a great heroine, neither a self-loathing spaz (per the chick lit formula) nor a freakishly over-perfect paragon who just doesn't know how darned gorgeous and flawless she really is until the hero clues her in to her magnificence (gag). Her reasons for resisting her attraction to Callahan are actually pretty sensible, not contrived just to keep the lovers apart. Really, just so very enjoyable.

Kristan Higgins does, indeed, get better with each book. No, this isn't Rocket Science or Philosophy, but in the contemporary romance category, she's coming up fast through the ranks. Her characters are real - which means they are flawed, and there are awkward moments in the story. I like that! It's a nice break from romances with perfect people in story lines where the basic conflict stems from one very frustrating failure in communication! The story is told in the first person, from the perspective of the heroine. Normally, I don't really enjoy that, but Higgins does it so well that by the end of the first sentence in the book I was over it. "Too Good To Be True" was a fast, enjoyable read. I read it through, cover to cover, this evening and was sad to see the story come to an end. I often find, with romance stories, that the hero is 'too good to be true' and the heroine is so annoying I want to strangle her. In this case, I loved both Callahan and Grace. Callahan is funny, kind, sensitive, perceptive and honorable, but he's not perfect - he's distrustful, defensive, and quick to jump to conclusions (understandable, given his situation, but not perfect). Grace is a great teacher, a loving sister, a good friend, but she's got middle sister issues and some minor codependency struggles (how many of us don't?). I loved how the two of them work through his being an ex-con: her blundering through it and his struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of people's (especially Grace's) assumptions about it. Higgins succeeds in making her characters more than one dimensional and injects some twists into the standard romance plotline. Grace's younger sister could've been written with no depth, but that's not the case. Her older sister, Margaret, could simply be a Type A, older sister, career driven witch, but she's not. With the exception, perhaps, of the men Grace meets through the internet dating site, Higgins' characters avoid the pitfalls of being all good or all bad. And, as another reviewer pointed out, the ending has a little twist I really didn't see coming... If you're looking for a fun romance to cure your winter blues, pick up "Too Good To Be True"!