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Renaissance Man Stephanie James 9780340335659 Books

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Renaissance Man Stephanie James 9780340335659 Books

I Loved it.


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Renaissance Man Stephanie James 9780340335659 Books Reviews

This tape is the abridged version of a serial romance novel published in 1981, and re-issued more recently to capitalize on the Jayne Anne Krentz' more recent popularity. Fans of Krentz can find these reprints helpful; most of her earlier work, especially that published under the Stephanie James, can be difficult to come by.
[...] In many ways, reading RENAISSANCE MAN feels like reading an abridged novel already, with certain aspects of the story seeming severely underdeveloped.
Set in California, Alina Corey and Jared Troy haven't met, but they have engaged in a bitter battle over the unknown historical fate of a particular Italian courtesan and the wealthy mercenary who once bypassed her defenses, romanced her, and then disappeared. Thinking she has found the location of a document that could settle the matter, Alina uses Jared's name to acquire copies of the document. Tipped off to the scam, Jared Troy confronts the heroine, and, in true Krentz fashion, sparks fly immediately.
The gist of the novel lies in the way Alina has patterned her personal life after her historical ideal, populating her world with intelligent men kept at arms length. Likewise, Jared is a modern-day merchant-"warrior" -- his business acumen is so finely attuned that he has a computer installed in his home office just for tracking market conditions! In fact, Jared has noticed the similarities in the relationship between him and Alina and that of the renaissance-era lovers. He points it out to Alina, but not after Krentz has explicitly pointed them out to the reader, several times.
There is an extremely perfunctory suspense element, reduced further by the presence of only one likely villain. The romance develops roughly, largely because Krentz fails to adequately explain why Alina would disregard Jared's frequently obnoxious behavior. Furthermore, there is precious little of the dialogue that Krentz would become known for.
The story is not without some sly tricks, though. The fate of the renaissance lover's is left to the reader's imagination -- a potentially ambiguous ending that I'm not sure would make it into print, today. Ultimately, the lack of character depth is the real disappointment here. Jared is a businessman with a passion for history, and that is as complex as he gets.
Krentz fans should still try to check out these early books, because they provide an interesting view on her developing obsessions over the intersections of commerce and art, why still showcasing her dramatic sense of passion.
I really enjoyed this book, which surprised me a bit. The copy I have came in an anthology with Velvet Touch, which I did not like. Usually with these JAK compilation books the stories tend to be very similar in tone and writing style. But Renaissance Man had none of the problems that plagued Velvet Touch and I really believed that Alina and Jared were desperately in love with each other at the end.

The premise of the story is that Alina and Jared are both singularly in love with the tale of a couple who lived in the fifteenth century; Battista and Francesco. Alina's sympathies are with Battista and Jared's with Francesco and they both have different ideas about how the couple's story ends. Alina and Jared have exchanged letters for three months passionately debating the couple's relationship and in the process developing a bit of a relationship themselves.

Jared shows up at Alina's house while she's having a party and sweeps her off her feet in short order. I really liked Jared's character. He was masculine and strong but at the same time sweet and emotionally vulnerable. He made it clear from almost the very beginning that he needed Alina; not just desired her physically but needed her on every level. It doesn't take long for Alina to fall in love with Jared as well and the depth of their feelings for each other never leave the reader in doubt of how the book will end.

The thing that cost this book half a star, though was Alina's behavior at the end. (To me, 5/5 stars is like receiving a 100% grade on a school paper; everything has to be perfect. Everything I like included and none of the stuff I don't.) There's a permeating story about Alina having gotten ahold of a microfilm that is supposed to contain letters related to the Battista/Francesco story. The film is taken and once it's established that Jared didn't take it, suspicion is cast on someone in Alina's life. Alina balks at the idea of this person being the thief and all the implications it carries with it, but it isn't long before she's having trouble denying the facts and she starts to see the truth. At this point, however, she starts insisting that she needs to "warn" the person of the trap Jared and his associate have laid. It makes no sense that she would do this.

I know that Alina considered this person a friend and she felt a sense of loyalty to him, but it doesn't make sense to warn him. If he was innocent, then he wouldn't get caught in the trap. And if he was guilty then he'd deliberately set Alina up as the fall-guy should his crimes ever get discovered and thus he didn't deserve her loyalty. She realizes all this but still keeps insisting that she owes him a warning. It would have made much more sense in the story if she'd stuck to her guns and insisted that there must be a logical explanation for everything. And that her desire to contact him wasn't to warn him so he wouldn't get caught, but to hear his side of the story. That still would have served the purpose of causing Jared to question whether she was in love with this other guy and thus provided the impetus for the big relationship finale at the end. It bugs me when authors write their characters so that they behave in an illogical manner when there was a perfectly good alternative they could have taken that would have made much more sense in the story.

I also found it frustrating that we never found out the end of Battista and Francesco's story. It wouldn't have been hard to include a short epilogue in which Alina and Jared finally figure it out.

All in all, though, this was a solid book with a believable love story and the mystery kept my attention too.
I Loved it.