Review: Started Out With A Bang!
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 7, 2013
THREE STAGES OF LOVE: LUST started out with a bang, but the wishy-washy heroine brought the story down to a soft tap with her annoying antics.Life is precious. Love is something to be cherished and embraced. Evangeline Chase must have missed that memo along the way - she actually might be the most annoying "heroine" I have ever encountered in all the books I have read. Eva, a very driven career woman, started out as a tolerable character - not unlike many female main characters in erotic romance novels, but I expected the self-absorbed, control-freak would soften a bit when her sexy love interest entered the picture, but NO! SHE GOT WORSE!Here is what worked for me:The premise of THREE STAGES OF LOVE: LUST was a winner. I'm a sucker for stories that involve 2 dominant lead characters, I really enjoy watching them grow and change as they figure out how to exist in the same space without constantly fighting for dominance...that did not happen in this book.I loved Eva as the feisty and successful businesswoman and I loved that she wasn't willing to compromise her goals for love. She never had visions of becoming any man's "little woman" - caring for a house full of kids, scrubbing toilets and cooking dinner every night for a family.I adored Alexander - what a treasure of a man! Alexander could have any woman he wanted - handsome, self-made powerful venture capitalist AND a total sweetheart! He put up with way more crap from Eva than I care to recall.The supporting characters were great! I found that about half way through the book, I was more interested in Marcus and Samantha's budding relationship than Eva and Alexander's train wreck of a courtship.Here is what I had trouble with:Eva's character was about as egocentrical as they come and she is the sole reason for a 3 star rating as opposed to a 4 star rating. I kept waiting for the big epiphany that her life is pretty much perfect, but it never came. The following statement, from the book's blurb is misleading about Eva's character: "Eva's transformation from prim and proper to fun and dominating proves to be one of the most erotically intriguing personal makeovers around." This makes me think her character as a whole makes this transformation, not just split personalities for day and night. Yes, she is fairly prim and proper at work, but after hours, when the sun goes down, she is dominating, but I wouldn't call her fun - her games are played to make herself feel as though she has the upper hand, but she usually just ends up hurting those around her as she uses her "friends" as pawns for her amusement. Honestly, I wanted to slap her right off the page on multiple occasions - she was THAT unlikable!As I said before, I loved Alexander, but I cringed at his weakness where Eva was concerned, but I suppose I can't fault him for loving a bitch.Finally, men DO NOT GIGGLE! They do not! Giddy schoolgirls giggle - excited females giggle. Men chuckle and laugh and they might even snicker, but men DO NOT GIGGLE - please consider curtailing the male "giggling" in the next installment, because it successfully ripped me right out of the story each and every time I read it. Yes, I say curtail it in the next installment as if I am going to read it, right? Well, yes, I am definitely going to read it, because I am a glutton for punishment AND author T.C. Anthony left us with a teensy bit of a cliffhanger that left me with a glimmer of hope that Eva is going to get her s*** together and quit with all the tantrums. I hope I am not wrong...✳✳ Copy provided by the author/publisher for an honest review.