PERSUADING ANNIE

Author: Melissa Nathan ISBN: 0060595809 9/2004 CHICK LIT Publisher: AVON TRADE

After years as a sweet, good-natured pushover, Annie Markham has had to face up to three hard truths: You've got to be tough to succeed in business and romance. Sometimes your meddling loved ones are right about your worthless, no-good boyfriend being worthless and no good. The only reliable thing about men is that they're totally unreliable. Okay, she's been persuaded. So now, seven years after wisely and abruptly dumping the "love of her life," Jake Mead, things should be going better for Annie Markham, right? Unfortunately, her life's going nowhere, her family's going mental, and the family business is heading straight down the tubes. Could it get worse? Of course! Jake's back, Annie's getting ready for bankruptcy, and no one's ready for Christmas ... let alone a happy New Year. And no amount of persuasion will ever convince Annie that magic does happen and dreams do come true, not even at the stroke of midnight on December 31 at New York's Plaza Hotel ... will it?

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

After reading and loving, PRIDE PREJUDICE AND JASMIN FIELD, I was eager to pick up PERSUADING ANNIE to see how it compared. Would I be as entertained in reading ANNIE as I had been with JASMIN? Well, I must say that it more than lived up to my expectations.

In this update of Jane Austen’s PERSUASION, Ms. Nathan keeps the general gist of Austen’s story, but changes just enough to be completely credible in today’s world. I loved the character of Annie; she’s the only sensible member of her family, and the one everyone turns to in a crisis.

Jake, the rejected suitor from the past, is insecure on the inside, while portraying a man of immense strength and power to the world. By getting to see inside his mind, the reader sympathizes with him and eagerly awaits the moment when he concludes that he and Annie might have a future. All of the secondary characters, from Annie’s father and her sisters to the family confidant, entertain the reader by providing comical relief.

If you’re not a fan of Jane Austen, don’t worry that this book isn’t for you. The story stands alone and you don’t have to be familiar with Ms. Austen’s work to appreciate it. I devoured PERSUADING ANNIE, not being able to put it down, and I highly recommend this marvelous book to fans of the chick-lit genre.

Kendra Patterson