ISBN: 9780312651312 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Cover Price: $27.99

"Hunh. Well, that was a disappointment" was the exact reaction at the end of Love in a Nutshell by Janet Evanovich and Dorien Kelly.

It is understood that funny people aren't going to be funny all the time. However, funny people should be funny when they're "on". When they're on stage, on camera, on TV, in publication. It's also understood that artists sometimes want to venture out of a "role" that they've been pinned too for too long. That's commendable and deserves a kudos for bravery. However, that just doesn't seem to be the case here. Love in a Nutshell is a romance that seems to strive for funny during quite a few moments in the story, but it never quite achieves it. Oh, there are some chuckles and definitely some smiles, but nothing that's truly laugh worthy.

Evanovich, who's name is almost synonymous with romantic comedy, just doesn't seem to pull off the comedy part in this collaboration. Even her earlier romance works (pre-Plum) have a humor in them that is just lacking in this newest release. Now this was a collaboration so who's to say where the majority of the writing lies, but Evanovich's name got top billing and was the name that caused the purchase.

If humor were the only reason Nutshell didn't click, then it wouldn't have such a low rating (2 out of 5). That could have been chalked up to having the wrong expectations. Unfortunately, the conversational writing style eventually slumped into overly simplistic and just ended up coming across as lacking effort.

All of this seems cruelly harsh, so huge apologies for it. It's a possibility that having not paid the hardcover price might have lessened the sting of disappointment. Therefore the recommendation is to wait for this to come out in mass market paperback or check it out from the library. Even die-hard Evanovich fans (such as is the case here) might not be able to get past the let-down otherwise.

Remember though, a review is just an opinion. Take a listen for yourself, to a clip from the audio book version courtesy of Macmillan Audio, you might decide differently.