Title: Hot Summer
Author: Judy Powell
Publisher: Lyons Publishing
JUDY POWELL'S Hot Summer is a fantastically bad read, even for a romance novel. Published by Lyons Publishing, under the Island Spice brand, the book has a catchy cover, featuring a nubile young woman in a two-piece bathing suit, bathed in the red glow of a setting sun. Worst yet, it contains the phrase 'yeah mon', and for that alone does not deserve much tolerance.
Unfortunately, the cover is as good as it gets. Hot Summer is built around all the romance novel clichés, and were it entertainingly written that would be tolerable. Romances are generally expected to follow a formula, readers expect it of them, and thus, being formulaic is generally not problematic.
ROMANCE NOVEL FORMULA
Hot Summer actually follows the romance novel formula. Summer Jones is a working woman attempting to balance taking care of her sick mother, finishing her master's, and working as a waitress. Soon she will become the classic damsel in distress, as econo-mic and emotional pressures bear down on her. She is therefore perfectly primed for the arrival of Prince Charming who comes in the form of a music executive.
We are told time and again that Summer is supposedly bright (as romantic heroines are generally expected to be) but she never shows it. Her conversations are generally inane and she jumps to conclusions without the barest thread of evidence in one of the most annoying romantic stereotypes.
GOOD HUMOUR
Lance Munroe is no more interesting, and if he were truly arrogant it might have been an annoying trait, but at least it would bring about some good humour, from which Hot Summer could greatly benefit. As is, the story is quite limp.
Formula can often be mistaken for bad writing, but the two are very different things and Hot Summer's problems are only further complicated by the fact that it's formulaic. The novel suffers from weak characterisation, flat writing and an uninteresting plot. It has a lot more fizzle than sizzle. Essentially, it feels like the work of a very young writer who is just experimenting with the craft, is attempting to copy what she has read but has not yet got a good handle on the artistry of writing.
Hot Summer is another example of writing that can cause Jamaicans to once again cringe in pain as we are once more misrepresented in the international domain. It seems that thanks to the combined efforts of the tourist and T-shirt industry, we'll never be able to rise above the curse of the 'yeah mon', which Hot Summer attempts to use in showing authentic Jamaican speech.
Readers with a very high tolerance for romance novels might well find it tolerable, but if one's pain threshold is low, Hot Summer should
definitely be avoided.
- T.B-S.
