"Overseas" is Williams's time-traveling romance debut about a Wall Street investment banker, a man who speaks in language far too flowery to be from this century, and some rather twisty-turny World War I sequences. Also, poetry. And really, the last third or so could be a treatise on the importance of taking your birth control correctly.

The Good

For some reason, I've had the reader's equivalent of writer's block for the past month or so. I've been reading at a really slow pace and finding zero inspiration for written reviews. In respect to easing myself back into reading and reviewing, "Overseas" worked. It was extremely fluffy, extremely... pleasant, for the most part. It was like cotton candy, or a dumb hot guy. I mean, it's not like there's much going on upstairs, but it's nice to look at it for a little bit. The concept, though a bit overdone, wasn't bad either. (So that dumb hot guy had nice fashion sense.)

The Bad

Unfortunately, "pleasant" doesn't equal interesting. "Overseas" wasn't so boring that I couldn't finish the somewhat lengthy novel. It didn't take much brainpower. But it did, towards the end, lose my interest to the point that I was skimming over a few pages here and there. Williams's prose is nothing to write home about, and her main character is rather bland. I can't remember many distinguishing traits about her besides the fact that she was "librarian hot" and disliked swearing.

The romance was rather bland, too. It happened with little build-up, which is explained away by the end of the book. Yet I really didn't care about whether or not these two stayed together. The sex scenes weren't even descriptive (and somehow the dude was SO GREAT in bed after being with only one woman previously and having a twelve-year dry spell--as if he could have lasted five seconds). Hey, if I'm going to read a fluffy romance novel, the least you could do is give me some good porn, Beatriz Williams.

The Ugly

Our male lead, Julian, has a bad case of Edward Cullen Syndrome. Only, unlike Edward Cullen, he isn't funny in that somewhat unintentional way. He doesn't sparkle either, which, let's be real, added to the whole "Twilight" experience. I miss the body-glittered vampires of my youth.

Julian says things like "beloved" and abstains from sex and when he isn't a dreadful bore he's a controlling douchebag. Like, come on Kate (our bland MC, in case you forgot). This dude doesn't even sound like he wants to do any freaky stuff. And he gets his panties in a twist whenever she goes anywhere! The one time he does get freaky, he apologizes. Talk about dull.

I don't expect much of romance novels. But I do expect a halfway decent male lead.

The Verdict

Yawn, yawn, yawn. Did I mention that there aren't any good sex scenes? FOR THE LOVE OF HUMANITY.

This was kind of an odd book. Weirdly enough, it brought to mind a mix-up of 'A Discovery of Witches' and '50 Shades of Grey', albeit tamer than 50 and not nearly as well written and planned as Discovery. I didn't like some of the interactions in the book, the pace it the plot moves at (which is only partially explained in the last chapter), or the back and forth of the chapters between Amiens and 2008. It was, however, a quick, easy, and more-or-less engaging read. I would recommend picking this book up from the library for a weekend trip or a fast summer read, but not as a purchase to keep forever.

I really enjoyed the time travel concept of the story but, the dialogue. Take schmaltzy and multiply it by ten and you still wouldn't hit the cheese factor in this book.