Every now and then, a woman needs a good friend to smack her upside her head. Certainly, through much of Jennifer Rainville’s self-published novel Trance of Insignificance, readers will feel the urge to slap former TV reporter Jules Duvil around. She’s got everything she could want – a hot career in PR, a good husband – and yet she keeps getting tangled up in her ex-fiancé, the handsome TV news anchor Jack Culligan. In fact, it isn’t really clear why she keeps coming back to him. He calls her “beautiful” and it makes the reader’s skin crawl; how could she be charmed by that most unimaginative of pet names? And how, Lord, how could she sleep with a married man? All the while, her girlfriends casually ask Jules questions about her extramarital affair. If ever a protagonist needed a good friend, it is Jules Duvil.
Later in the novel, Jules’ mother-in-law Tess tells her that she has something Noah, Jules’ husband, will never have: a sense of self. What does Tess think gives Jules this sense of self? Her tough childhood in Boston, Massachusetts. One can see how trying to get away from your past might lead you to getting wrapped right up in it again, as Jules does repeatedly with fellow Massachusetts native Jack.
Perhaps because of her questionable judgement, Jules comes off as incredibly real and her story is believeable. It is engaging and thought-provoking. How can we be so stupid when it comes to matters of love and lust? Why do we let our pasts best us, again and again? Can we break our bad habits and find happiness?
The novel would benefit from a good proofread and occasionally the broadcast journalism technical jargon is distracting, but Rainville’s debut novel provides a captivating tale of a love that her protagonist just can’t seem to let go.
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