She's Gone Country

brittany — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

When I received Jane Porter’s second novel, I’d been sick in bed for nearly two weeks. Though the book helped pass the time, it did little to hold my interest. From this reviewer’s perspective, a true test of a novel’s worth can be answered with one simple question: Would I buy this book? As it pertains to She’s Gone Country, the answer is no, even if I were to set aside my general dislike of “chick lit.”

She’s Gone Country tells the story of Shey Lynne, a model who had a seemingly perfect marriage to a successful photographer. Essentially, she was one half of a glamorous New York City power couple—and then it all went to hell when her husband came out of the closet (a surprising twist, I’ll admit). Shey Lynne hightails it to Parkfield, the small Texas town where she grew up. It’s here that we’re introduced to her controlling Southern Baptist mother, rough and tumble brother Brick, uppity brother Blue, and the memory of her deceased brother Cody, a bi-polar schizophrenic drug addict who died too young and whose death haunts the family like a ghost.

It’s in this environment that Shey Lynne is raising her three sons, who are trying desperately to adjust to life in the sticks after enjoying a private school education and a privileged life in the city. Though much family drama ensues, the meat of the story is Shey Lynne’s relationship with Dane Kelly, a former bull riding champion and wealthy cattle rancher that Shey Lynne dated briefly but intensely as a teenager. At sixteen, Dane was her world, so her parents sent her off to boarding school to keep her from doing something stupid like getting pregnant or running off with Kelly while he rode the circuit. Fast forward twenty years and it’s immediately apparent that Dane still has the power to make Shey weak in the knees when they run into each other at a popular restaurant in their small town.

Shey’s constant, almost obsessive references to Dane’s masculinity; his strength; his big this and strong that; his virility; his tight jeans; his smell; his every goddamn thing becomes too much to bear a few pages into their rekindled romance—let alone 340 pages later. It’s the thing I hate about flowery love stories; they’re always flirting with sex and alluding to certain female feelings. I’d have nothing but respect for Porter’s work if somewhere in She’s Gone Country she included the sentence “Dane made Shey Lynne’s pussy wet.” That’s what we’re talking about; that’s the funny feeling Shey Lynne experiences “down there” every time Dane walks into the room.

She’s Gone Country aims to provide a snapshot of a family in transition and perhaps even feed the myth that everything happens for a reason. It supposes that even after a lifetime of heartbreak, some women get their storybook ending, and this is precisely why I disliked the novel. I prefer a bit more depth in my books, and I want writing that more closely adheres to reality.

Written by: Tina Vasquez, October 15th 2010

Easy on the Eyes

admin — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 00:31:00 +0000

Jane Porter

5 spot

On the heels of her 2006 book release Flirting with Forty—which would become a Lifetime movie—Jane Porter shines in her latest novel Easy on the Eyes, which focuses on a woman fighting the ravages of time. Written with power and emotion, you will not only feel for but also fight with main character, TV entertainment show host Tiana Tomlinson, as she struggles to save her job, navigate her personal life, and all out survive in the fast-paced celebrity world were image is everything.

At thirty-eight, Tiana seems to have it all, but she’s just now coming out of the haze of her life. She is a woman who has always worked hard to get where she’s gotten, but it seems she’s gotten a little too comfortable in her position as host of America Tonight, one of the top entertainment news shows out there. She gets a reality check when her boss wants to make her one-woman show a two-woman gig, adding on fresh talent found in the bubbly twenty-eight-year-old Shelby.

While Tiana tries her hardest to find angles to save her job without doing exactly what her agent, boss, and other industry peers are pushing her to do (get "work" done on her aging face), fate seems to be playing a cruel game with her as she keeps being thrown together with Dr. Michael O’Sullivan (aka Dr. Hollywood), the devastatingly handsome plastic surgeon to the stars whom Tiana hates more for what he represents than who he really is.

I was very impressed by how Porter was able to delve into a world many of us hardly acknowledge and still keep true to her characters. While the scenes are written with powerful emotion and gripping realism, there is still a lightheartedness and romance as Michael and Tiana dance around just how much they may not actually hate each other. Easy on the Eyes is another Jane Porter highlight showing readers and, in this case, Hollywood just how tough women over the age of thirty can be.

Written by: Nina Lopez-Ortiz, October 9th 2009