Saturday, April 17, 2021

Review: A Surrealist Affair by Jacqueline Corcoran

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Title: A Surrealist Affair
Author: Jacqueline Corcoran

Read copy: eBook (Kindle)
Published: May 17, 2021
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
ASIN: B08XPBHX3W

Elle Dakin is shocked when she’s given the opportunity to fly to Paris to attribute a newly discovered painting to her favorite artist. After all, why would they choose a broke, struggling Art History doctoral student for such an honored task? When she arrives in Paris, she realizes the deal was too good to be true—suddenly she’s neck deep in a murder, an international art theft, and threats to her safety. Thank goodness Ryan, an art exporter, comes to her aid, protecting her from the dangerous side of Paris and those who would try to harm her. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s sinfully handsome...until she discovers he has just as many secrets as everyone she’s met on this trip of a lifetime gone wrong...

The last assignment undercover FBI agent Ryan DeLong wants is to investigate art theft. But here he is, stuck in Paris, chasing down the thieves of a million-dollar masterpiece. The only bright spot is Elle, the shy but enchanting doctoral student who teaches him about more than just the beauty of Surrealism. He can’t tell her the truth of his identity, plus he refuses to get romantically involved with anyone while he’s on a case. But when he learns Elle also has things to hide, he begins to doubt everything he thought he knew about her.

My rating:

***ARC provided by publisher through NetGalley***

DNF @ 21%

I requested this book on the basis of the blurb. It looked a promising, engrossing, riveting book. Imagine my surprise when I started on reading it and my eyes just went blurry.

For me, a book (no matter the genre) needs to grab you immediately. Be it immediate conflict, a crime, a chase, a life-and-death situation or even a lone character. I don't care, as long as it grabs my attention. This story failed on all counts. The heroine came across as a scared-y pushover and the trip to Paris with her falling victim to pickpockets as soon as she stepped onto the metro, didn't help. Worse, it made her appear stupid on top of everything. The hero barely made an impression. I remember his name and that's pretty much it.

The second problem was the plodding pacing, made even worse by the massive amount of exposition. I don't mind exposition, every story needs it to establish the background and characters, but in this instance it was badly done in the form of info-dump (especially in the initial just-come-to-Paris scenes that read more like a tourist guide of how to get to the city than a book).

Nothing much happened in the first fifth of the book I read, only one murder and even then the heroine was more worried about being too early to go to her rented apartment.

Pass.

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