Review: Dating Cary Grant by Emelle Gamble

This is a very light-hearted story, and I know that's what some people enjoy.  I tend to read things that are a little grittier, I need more angst, more intensity. This book just wasn't the sort of thing I usually read.

I did enjoy the New York City setting and all of the movie references.

I had been looking forward to reading this book because I'm a big Cary Grant fan.  Based on the title and description of the book, I thought the character was going to have an affair with the ghost of Cary Grant or a Cary Grant look-a-like or something like that.  I was sort of hoping for that.

Instead this was more about a woman, Tracy, trying to save her marriage, or maybe escape her marriage.  Escape is how I viewed it in the beginning.  She had a job in New York City, and wanted to be near her job, while her husband was working as a small town mayor in Connecticut.  For someone like me, New York City seems like the obvious choice.  If you have the opportunity to live there, who wouldn't?  Maybe that's just me.

I suppose I hoped this was a story about a woman finding herself and figuring out what she really wanted out of life..  Okay, it sort of is, but what she found and what she realized she wanted wasn't what I would have wanted, so I guess that bothered me.  I wanted her to find what she wanted in the arms of a handsome, Cary Grant-like stranger.

In general, I don't like stories in which women are made to feel guilty because they want to pursue their careers.  I know I'm supposed to understand that she realized love was more important - but I didn't feel like I ever knew enough about her marriage or her husband to accept that.

I felt like there was a lot going on in this story - we have Tracy trying to figure out what she wants and the issues with her job, then there are these strange characters that keep popping up, then it's sort of a romance.  I think I would have enjoyed the book more if there had been a stronger focus on one of those elements - either make it more of a ghost story or more of a romance.  Overall, I didn't have any strong feelings either way about the book.  I didn't love it, didn't hate it.  It wasn't at all what I expected though, so that might have been what threw me off.

I'm sure this book would work just fine for someone who did want a sweet, nice romance that takes place in New York City, with a few appearance from some rather well-known ghosts.