Last Night with the Earl might not make you want to stay another night

Kelly Bowen’s Last Night with the Earl does have an emotional core, but it’s hidden beneath the occasionally clunky writing.

The idea of Last Night with the Earl, sent to me by Forever Romance, is a strong one, and there are a few lines in it that hit strongly. Both Eli Dawes and Rose Hayward have and are having their struggles with mental issues, but find in the other someone who makes them want to improve themselves for themselves, not just for the other. (The novel should, in fact, probably come with a trigger warning about thoughts of suicide, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder.)

In fact, they start out as friends first, although Eli’s had feelings for her for a long time — which isn’t made immediately apparent, making it more difficult to buy into the idea. Friends supporting each other and falling in love as it happens provides a strong opening sales pitch for readers to make that buy-in. But Kelly Bowen’s writing doesn’t always build evenly on that; it can be repetitive and has a few issues with diction.

Ultimately, the moments that Bowen hits — first kisses, a special dance, and so on — are good not because of the writing, but because a seasoned romance reader already knows what the feelings should be. There are brief moments that stand out well; that special dance is one of them. But there are no lines that really stick with you. I can’t specifically recall one line that had me sitting back and going “yes, that line is glorious.”

At the end of the day, Last Night with the Earl isn’t a bad romance; it’s just a mediocre one. It brings up some meaningful points about how we live through and after horrible things happen to us, but it makes it difficult to get to those meaningful points or moments because of the writing. There’s a decent sense of pacing and time passing, but experienced romance readers will have to fill the blanks in for the rest of it.