At First Sight: For the last 10 years, Anna Elliot has been telling herself that rejecting Rick Wentworth was the right decision, that it was just a summer fling and that she made the sensible choice in the end. But when he finally returns to England after 10 years spent in Australia, Anna can't help to doubt.
Plus, she's totally agonizing about possibly, maybe seeing Rick again.
In the 10 years since their separation, Rick went and made something of himself, becoming a respected marine biologist and writing a best-selling book - titled Sex in the Sea. He is the rock star of scientific writing, and even has a super model girlfriend to prove it.
What's more, he doesn't forgive and certainly doesn't forget.
They both think they know what'll happen once they cross paths again, but neither is prepared for the feelings that never really went away.
Second Glance: I hope I didn't give much away with the summary, but really Persuade Me is a modern retelling of Jane Austen's Persuasion, so you know, it's not like the plot is a big mystery since, as far as I remember, Persuade Me follows Persuasion pretty closely.
I greatly enjoyed Persuade Me, and a lot of it was because of Anna and Rick. They are both deeply flawed characters - Anna is basically a spineless wimp, particularly when it comes to her sisters, father and other assorted family members and she has a tendency to take Russian Literature a bit too literally; and Rick has clung to the chip on his shoulder so hard and for so long that sometimes it seems like that's all he is, and he can be a bit vain.
Still, they are essentially good people: Anna loves her nephews, is a good friend and if she does let people walk all over her, she's also smart and tries to do her best under the circumstances. Rick is very close to his older sister and can be capable of great kindness when he notices something is wrong.
My one complaint is that the story does go a bit in a circles toward the end, and that you never really get to see Anna and RIck together as a couple because the whole point of the story is for them to persuade each other to give the other a second chance.
Bottom Line: Persuade Me is very much a story of second chances and for that alone I would like it, but it turns out it's actually quite good. I enjoyed the characters and the modernization of the situations and characters of Persuasion because they made sense.
Favorite Quote: "But now his instinct was to find Anna again, and recapture that feeling of happiness tinged with misery. Or was it misery tinged with happiness? No that it mattered. All he knew was that he had to be with her, and pain or pleasure was pretty irrelevant."
