Tiny Little Thing

I've read and enjoyed all of Breatriz Williams' previous releases, but this one left me cold. Christina “Tiny” Schuyler Hardcastle is a poor little WASPy rich girl for whom we're supposed to feel sympathy because she was raised to be a perfect rich man's wife. The book alternates between Tiny's first person narrative in 1966, when her husband's cousin Caspian returns home as a decorated Vietnam War veteran, and Caspian's third person narrative in 1964 when he first encounters Tiny in a coffee shop and falls immediately in love with her.

I didn't buy the insta-love between the couple in the 1964 scenes, and I couldn't suspend disbelief that Tiny and Caspian never make the connection that Tiny's rich fiance with political aspirations is the same person as Caspian's rich cousin with political aspirations who is getting married in two weeks. But even if those issues didn't bother me, I couldn't have gotten past Tiny's ultimate passivity which requires her to be rescued just as the reader wants her to break her own chains. There are strong women in Tiny Little Thing, but unfortunately the titular heroine is not one of them.

Tiny Little Thing is the second book about the three Schuyler sisters. I liked Vivian's story, The Secret Life of Violet Grant, better than this installment, and I have high hopes that if Williams decides to write a novel about the beautiful, scandalous Pepper Schuyler, who plays a pivotal role in Tiny's life, it will be more rewarding as well.