Ilze

Wonderful character-driven romance between a socially extremely awkward (borderline Asperger's, I'd say) but intelligent, honorable and virgin hero, and a supremely social but also kind and empathetic heroine. It passed the "two reads" test beautifully - some reviewers say that two readings of a book are required before you can really tell if it is any good or not (that's assuming that the book passes the "one read" test first).  I was happy about it the first time I read it, but not really sure how well I would rate it. But with the second reading it was completely clear - 4.5 stars. The only niggle I have about the book is that the heroine Caroline is portrayed as extremely wise in understanding other people's feelings, but she doesn't figure out that the hero is deeply in love with her until he finally tells her so, and at times seems deliberately obtuse about her own feelings as well.  Of course, if she had understood this earlier, the story would have ended a lot sooner - at the end of the fantastic seduction scene where the hero finally loses his virginity at the age of 32.