Rowena’s review of Until You by Judith McNaught.
Hero: Stephen Westmoreland
Heroine: Sheridan Bromley
Grade: 2.75 out of 5
A teacher in a school for wealthy young ladies, Sheridan, Bromleigh is hired to accompany one of her students, heiress Charise Lancaster, to England to meet her fiancé. When her charge elopes with a stranger, Sheridan wonders how she will ever explain it to Charise’s intended, Lord Burleton.
Standing on the pier, Stephen Westmoreland, the Earl of Langford, assumes the young woman coming toward him is Charise Lancaster — and informs her of his inadvertent role in a fatal accident involving Lord Burleton the night before. And just as Sheridan is about to speak, she steps into the path of a cargo net loaded with crates!
Sheridan awakens in Westmoreland’s mansion with no memory of who she is; the only hint of her past is the puzzling fact that everyone calls her Miss Lancaster. All she truly knows is that she is falling in love with a handsome English earl, and that the life unfolding before her seems full of wondrous possibilities…
I am a huge Judith McNaught fan. I love her writing. I love her books and when I opened up this book for the first time, all those many years ago, I expected to love this book as well. Only, I didn’t. Not really. You see, I’m not a fan of amnesia stories. I can not stand those storylines. This was one of those storylines and the way that everything went down when the shit hit the fan got on my nerves.
I guess my main issue with the storyline, because believe it or not, it wasn’t the whole amnesia thing. It was the hero. The Stephen Westmoreland in this book was not the same Stephen that I met and fell in love with in Whitney, My Love. When I first met Stephen the night that Whitney went to Claymore to try to win Clayton back, I loved him. LOVED HIM! I couldn’t wait to read his book but then I started reading this book and though he was a great guy in the beginning, the more I read this book, the more that I thought…this isn’t the same guy.
It was like the Stephen I knew and loved in W,ML disappeared for a few years and came back this darker, meaner guy that nobody likes. It didn’t change when I read this book again a few weeks ago. I couldn’t get over it then and it seems that I still can’t get over it now.
Sharidan was a good solid heroine who didn’t deserve the way she was treated by Stephen in this book. I could see if she had manipulated Stephen, if she did all of his misleading intentionally and even though it took her quite a while to tell Stephen the truth, I still couldn’t forgive Stephen for the way that he treated Sharidan afterward.
This book isn’t my favorite book by Judith McNaught but it’s still not the worst book I’ve ever read. I enjoyed getting to see the other couples from the other books filter back into this book and Judith McNaught did a great job of not letting them steal Stephen and Sharidan’s thunder. I didn’t feel as if the book was crowded with too many couples. I felt like I had come to a party and met up with lots of old friends. I enjoyed getting to know Julianna Skeffington in this book too. I was glad that Sharidan wasn’t completely alone and that she had a friend in someone even though Julianna’s mother got on my hot damn diggity nerves.
Overall this book just wasn’t my cup of tea. I’m not a fan of amnesia stories and not even the great Judith McNaught could change my mind about this. So my annoyance with this book is more a thing of preference because I’m sure there will be other people who will adore this book but for me, it fell flat.
This book is available from Pocket. You can buy it here.
I love Judith McNaught. I *like* this book but don’t love it like I do her others.
I’ll have to re-read this though 🙂
I’m with ya! I didn’t ‘love’ this one but I remember tearing up with the letter (there is a note in this book right?) and making me cry is hard.
CindyS
I haven’t read this book, but remember fondly that one of the first romance books that I ever read was Double Standards by Judith McNaught.
Diana
I love her books this sounds great, Thank you
Penney
This was my first Judith McNaught, so it’ll always have a special place in my heart LOL 😛 But as amnesia story goes, this one is not bad 😛
I’m so with you. I had such a hard time believing this Stephen was the same Stephen from W,ML.
I remember looking forward to Stephen’s book, and then being extremely disappointed that his character had undergone such a drastic change. It felt as though the author had only one kind of hero she knew how to write, and forced Stephen into that mold.
Judith McNaught was one of my early favorites, too. Almost two decades later, I still remember the hero’s full name from “Something Wonderful,” Jordan Addison Matthew Townsend. Why do I know this? I guess it shows her books had a pretty profound impact on me. And they did, considering that I’m now a romance author!
Judith McNaught is one of my old time favorites. 🙂 I remember enjoying this book, but not loving it. Now I’m nostalgic… I’ll probably start re-reading her again. 🙂