An Event To Remember...Or Forget by Melissa Baldwin

Should really be titled when a good premise goes wrong.  I was very disappointed in this book, from the blurb it sounded like a fun and frothy piece of chick lit and I am rather partial to such.  Unfortunately it did not deliver on either of the two fronts that I judge a book by.

The basis of the plot is that Sienna is working for an Event Planner and has ended up more or less running the whole show with her boss just dropping in for a couple of hours a week to check their plans and then leaving the team to get on with it.  So, she has decided to go out on her own and set up her own Event Planning business with her colleague Craig.  She has been with Luke for 10 months but he is suddenly becoming distant, he is citing business meetings and trying to snare a new client for his brother's (mat have been brother-in-law) Advertising Agency.  This sets us firmly against a series of glamorous private events and extremely glamorous personal events arranged for baby showers, birthdays and engagements of Sienna's closest friends.  Mix in one glamorous Australian, Ace, who has all the right connections, a history with Luke and an eager for Sienna and surely sparks will fly.

See, what I mean about it sounding pretty good as a synopsis.  The initial plotting is slow and a little boring as all we seem to do is be treated to a series of Sienna's lists (a girl that's good on the organisational front, how unique *coughs*) and her internal panic because she isn't engaged yet.  Once Luke and Sienna meet up with Luke at Venice (I think that's what the posh niterie was called but I haven't got the will to go back and check) then all best are off.  Sadly everything that happens from this point on is neither a surprise nor that interesting - I mean we know what the genre demands from it's authors and it fulfills that criteria but in such a way as it doesn't engage you.

The characters are all really flat.  Sienna has the most input to her psyche but comes across as deeply unlikeable.  A bit of a Pollyanna in the beginning and then a wet lettuce when she finds out the truth about Luke.  There are glimpses of steel in her backbone at the events but not enough to make her believable.  Everyone else is just a little bit of a pastiche of a person.

In my opinion this is definitely one to forget - although, if you want something to read on the commute that will fill a few minutes and you don't have to engage a brain cell to keep up with the plot and the people then this would fill that slot.  You certainly won't miss your stop.