Cue the fireworks! A LESSON IN LOVE concludes Jennifer Connors' Lessonseries with a long awaited happily ever after. I give it 5 stars and recommend to all lovers of the romance genre.
In this ninth installment of the Lesson series, our romance heroine Ginny is thrust into her last romance novel. The year is 1813 and Ginny is thoroughly confused when she finds herself in Miss Samantha Rylan's fourteen year-old body at her father's funeral. Life quickly gets very rough for Ginny, but she uses all that she's learned over the years and her many lives to escape from dangerous situations and build a great life. At twenty-one, she travels to England from America to meet her only living relative, the ailing Earl of Carlisle, and almost immediately meets her mega-hunk, Andrew Blake William Clarke, the seventh Duke of Rutland.
Drew has only had the Rutland title for a couple of years and must learn to live his own life and make his own decisions, despite his mother's toplofty temperament. He and Samantha/Ginny strike up an unlikely friendship, and after some life-altering experiences, fall in love. The only problem is that Ginny doesn't get to stay in 1820; she has a life to return to in 21st Century America.
After waking from her coma, Ginny is given a clean bill of health and returns to work. However, in addition to having seriously weird and vivid dreams that include characters from her friend's romance novels, Ginny has acquired some unlikely talents. Ginny can now speak fluent French, ride a horse, and fence. She has also grown in self-confidence in inexplicable ways. Finally, she decides to make some changes in her life and travels to London to meet Dr. Westhaven, a university professor doing research on people like her who have awoken from comas with some new skills or talents. Is this professor The One? No spoilers here; you will just have to read the book to find out.
I loved this book, mostly because I've been looking forward to seeing what happens to Ginny when she returns to her real life. I also like that the "lesson" in love seems to be a culmination of all the previous lessons Ginny learned through her various romance heroines' lives, underlining the fact that relationships take more than just passion or friendship, but trust and selflessness, etc.
The dialogue and plotlines--both in the novel and in Ginny's real life--were believable, and the pace was excellent. I am so glad that the book was 300 pages long because I started to become sad around page 200, anticipating the end of the novel and series.
As with the other books in this series, the romance is graphic and detailed, making the book appropriate for adults only. In so many of the books in the Lesson series, Ginny makes fun of romance novels, and here, in an amusing turn of events, when Dr. Westhaven reads her journal detailing her dreams since waking from the coma, she tells him that her journal is very detailed. Dr.Westhaven is not expecting just howdetailed it is, though, and tells her, "You weren't kidding about it being detailed." To which Ginny responds, "No, I wasn't. Should I have warned you more vehemently?" Dr. Westhaven then says, "Perhaps. I was beginning to think you might have a future as a romance novelist."
All in all, followers of this series will not be disappointed in this last installment. It is a must read.
**Review shared with The Romance Reviews.com at http://www.theromancereviews.com/viewbooks.php?bookid=13705.
