Before I Met You

I've read and enjoyed Lisa Jewell's books for more than ten years, and I highly recommend both One-Hit Wonder and A Friend of the Family. But Before I Met You left me cold. Jewell does a good job of portraying the combination of wide-eyed wonder, tinge of fear, and naive determination that both Betty, in the 1990s, and Arlette, in the 1920s, feel as young women on their own in a big city for the first time. She also keeps the pages turning to find out the mystery behind the beneficiary in Arlette's will whom Betty is determined to find. But the narration is strangely distant from the characters, and I never felt fully connected to them. The object of Arlette's passion is more of a paragon than a real person. It was difficult to believe, even in those short "enlightened" years between the World Wars, that almost nobody batted an eyelash when Arlette became the lover of a black musician. In fact, none of the male characters work, with the exception of the taciturn young man who is one of the first people Betty encounters in her new life. All in all, not my favorite Lisa Jewell by far.