Author: Janet Elizabeth Henderson
Date of publication: 14 June 2013
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Author's links: Website / Facebook / Goodreads
My rating: 3,5 stars
ARC provided by IBPA via NetGalley
Goodreads Blurb
Englishman Lake Benson loaned his life savings to his dippy sister so that she could buy a shop. It was a big mistake. His sister has been steadily flushing his money down the drain – and now he wants it back. Years in the special forces taught Lake that if you want a job done, do it yourself. So he steps in to make the shop profitable, sell it and get his money back. The only problem is, the business is an underwear shop. And all Lake knows about underwear can be summed up in how fast he can unsnap a bra. To make matters worse, the tiny highland town already has a lingerie shop. A successful one, run by an ex-lingerie model. A very gorgeous ex-lingerie model, who’s distracting him from his mission more than he’d like to admit. If Lake wants to get his savings back, and get out of Scotland, he only has one option – wipe out the competition.
Kirsty Campbell has spent years rebuilding her life after she woke up in hospital in Spain to find her body scarred, and her ex-fiance had run off with all her money. The last thing she needs is a cocky, English soldier-boy trying to ruin all she has left. Her home town is only too happy to help her fight the latest English invasion, although Lake is beginning to sway them with his sex appeal and cut price knickers. With the help of her mother, and the retired ladies of Knit or Die, Kirsty sets about making sure that her shop is the last one standing in Invertary.
It’s Scotland versus England as you’ve never seen it before. It’s lingerie war.
My Review
I read Ms Henderson's previous novel, The Davina Code (here is my review), and I loved it, so I decided to try Lingerie Wars. I definitely didn't make a mistake picking up that book. It is a funny small town romance, written in the same style as The Davina Code.
The very opening lines had me laughing out loud - "Lake Benson's midlife crisis lasted exactly twenty-four hours. In that time he quit his career with the army and bought a lingerie shop. All things considered, he was glad the crisis hasn't lasted longer." :)))
The rest of the book did not disappoint in terms of comic situations from just funny and amusing to downright hilarious. The whole war metaphor going throughout the book - strategies, tactics, reconnaissance, undercover operations, sabotages - provoked a whole set funny (really LOL) situations in the book.
Generally I like the male leads more (understandably, I guess) but this time it was the opposite. I found Kristy a really attractive character. I could relate to her struggles to keep her business, her anxiety about her body, dealing with her unexpected and quickly developing feelings for Lake.
I liked Lake as well, though just as Kristy, I found his overconfidence and smugness overwhelming and annoying at times. He is determined and relentless in pursuing Kristy, yet we are never given insight into his mind - why he is so drawn to her. We see how Kristy's feeling for Lake develop gradually, but not vice versa. At the beginning she was just a challenge, courting her was an amusement of sorts, then at some point it became a matter of true, one-in-a-lifetime love. What I missed is how this happened, the realisation on Lake's part of the change of his feelings for Kristy, his awareness of the true nature of their relationship.
The novel has some strong supporting characters, Betty is just hilarious. We have a whole set of likeable small town characters - the only police officers and his younger twin sisters, the pub owner/mayor, the vicar, the knitting club ladies, the librarian.
There is also a nice secondary love story between Rainne and Alastair, although I was really upset about the way things between them developed in the end. Maybe it is the more logical outcome, still it made me sad.
My only complaint with the this book is that it felt too long. There were minor events/situations described in too much detail. I also would have like to see an epilogue of Lake and Kristy's story.
