Review: The Ashley Formula is in effect, even if it's starting to wear thin....
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 14, 2014
The PremiseThe latest in the Colorado Mountain series, this book focuses on Chace’s best friend, Jacob Decker and his relationship with Emmanuelle Holmes, his former girlfriend’s best friend.  He runs into Emme when he’s about to work a case in Gnaw Bone, Colorado.  Though things are complicated based on their past, the road ahead seems pretty straightforward for them to begin their own romance, but something’s going on and Emme’s disconnecting at every opportunity.The GoodI’ve said it before about Ms. Ashley - she has a formula and when it works, I think it’s great.  In this book, I think it’s working better than it has in a while, even if it’s still frayed around the edges.  She has a stream of consciousness style of writing that can have too much descriptive language, but she’s toned it down here and it doesn’t overwhelm the story.  There are some really touching moments with Emme and her childhood trauma, as well as the way she has learned to handle herself.  The story of the kaleidoscope itself is very sweet.Deck and Emme had great chemistry, though that’s not usually a problem for Ms. Ashley - her love scenes are usually the strongest thing in her stories.  This book can stand on its own, but it really does help to be familiar with the other books so that you can appreciate the appearances by earlier couples and see a bit of their HEAs in action.The Not so GoodWhen I say the formula’s frayed it’s because there’s nothing new as far as the story is concerned.  The samey-ness to all the books is something that happens to the best writers and here it is no different.  I would have liked a bit more action - the secondary plot involving the burglaries in Gnaw Bone seemed pretty tame and there’s no doubt about the relationship between Emme and Deck will work itself out.  I thought for a moment that this book would be dealing with a topic that is rarely if ever touched on in a romance novel - a heroine who doesn’t want to have children.  That would have been a genuine issue to work through but it’s tied up neatly and I was disappointed that it didn’t play out except in the standard way.  I would have respected the choice to have a heroine who didn’t follow the usual societal norms of procreating, just to have something different.The Bottom LineThe KA Formula is in full effect and if you like it, I think you’ll like this one for the stroll down memory lane with characters from previous books. While this is one of her stronger efforts of late, and the formula’s tweaked somewhat, it still needed a little something more to make it stand out from the rest of the series.