This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Reviewed by Jennifer Joyce
Timmie O’Neill is a highly accomplished designer, starting up her business single-handedly and building it into an international success. Timmie is motivated by her work and dedicates almost every working hour to her business. During a business trip to Paris, Timmie meets Jean-Charles, a dashing Frenchman who she falls for immediately. But there are constant obstacles thrown in their way and Timmie isn’t sure whether they will be able to stick together and dodge them or whether she will lose the first man she has given her heart to in years.
It took me quite a while to get into First Sight as I found it difficult to relate to the character of Timmie to begin with. She’s painted as an almost angelic being with her kindness, beauty (that she doesn’t have to work at but simply splashes her face with cold water), humility despite her huge success and her ability to nurse her employees back to health. She seemed far too perfect to the point that it started to grate. But then we find out that Timmie’s life isn’t perfect at all. She may have a thriving, lucrative business and prestige, but she has an extremely limited social life and is seeing a younger man who is only interested in what she can provide for him, just so she won’t be lonely. Although Zack isn’t vastly younger than Timmie, he acts like a teenage boy with his sulking and pouting when he doesn’t get his own way and I couldn’t see what Timmie saw him at all, so my favourite part of the book is when she finally snaps and says everything I wanted her to from the start. We also find out about Timmie’s tragic past, from her early childhood to her failed marriage and we see that her life isn’t as rosy as it was first implied.
First Sight is a rollercoaster of a book, with lots of highs and crashing lows. Just when you think everything is going to work out nicely, a spanner is thrown in the works so I was constantly wondering whether Timmie would get her happily ever after ending. I did think the book was much longer than it could have been as it dragged on in quite a lot of places and could be repetitive, which didn’t help with the pace.7/10