“Miss
Match” is a laugh-a-minute tale that tells the struggles of the heroine in the
jungle that is today’s dating scenario is. It will not only remind you of all your
bad dates, but reading from Ms. Carroll’s perspective, it will make you laugh about
it too! Leslie Carroll keeps you in splits as she takes you, along with Kathryn, on a
journey of love, laughter and mayhem.
Drama teacher Kathryn
‘Kitty’ Lamb, who’s thirty-five and single, is persuaded by her happily
married younger sister, and a nosy and bossy neighbor who incidentally owns NY’s
premiere matchmaking service, to enroll there. She does so against her better judgment and
in the process meets Walker ‘Bear’ Hart who’s the nosy neighbor’s son
and the man running the agency while his mother’s off getting married for the
umpteenth time. Bear and Kathryn hit it off instantly, so at ease with each other from the
first moment that it’s uncanny. The agency, ‘Six in the city’ guarantees
five potential mates or her money back and so begins the highly comical series of dates.
One after the other, some of the most eligible bachelors take her out on dates that
repeatedly end up a colossal disaster. Whether it’s the guy who wants to marry her
for a green card or the guy who wants her meet his dead mother, Kathryn gets her hopes and
feelings dashed again and again.
But it’s Bear who hurts
Kathryn the most, with his refusal to take their growing mutual attraction one step beyond
the bedroom. His mother’s countless marriages have left Bear with little belief in
the institution of marriage and he outright refuses to change his resolve to remain a
lifelong bachelor. However, he surprises himself with his own dog-in-the-manger attitude
towards Kathryn dating other guys. Will Kathryn lose hope and marry somebody else?
Leslie Carroll takes romantic comedy to a
new level in her wonderfully humorous book, ‘Miss Match’, which takes a
caustic look at the dating game. Kathryn desires what most women do – a marriage, and
a loving one at that. And like other women, she too wonders why it’s so hard to get a
man to go down on a bended knee and say those magic words.
Her plight is something many
of us can relate to and understand, and her big heart and smart-mouthed ways endear her to
the readers. Bear is also cute, cuddly and Ms. Carroll makes him sound absolutely yummy!
But his fear of commitment, despite the fact that Kitty and he make an absolutely splendid
couple, makes the reader long fiercely to knock some sense into this typical male. In
other words, Ms. Carroll has taken an average single woman’s life and plunked it down
amidst the pages - with pestering relatives, peer pressure, ovary clock ticking,
disastrous dates and all! Sounds simple, but in the capable hands
of a master storyteller like Leslie Carroll, it becomes a gotta-finish-it-or-no-dinner
kind of novel. Totally captivating!
Reviewed By Rashmi Srinivas
for The Road to Romance
January 13, 2003 |
