Review: reviewed by Redz World Reviews
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 17, 2014
Where should I begin with Protecting Olivia?  As is so often the case with ménage stories, plot can take a rear seat to the sex.  While there was a lot of it in the book, Caitlyn O'Leary clearly wanted to tell a story in between the passion play that occurred between Olivia, Joshua, and Ian.  Unfortunately, I felt that the plot fell short.  It seemed to advance too slowly, and offered a less than stellar impact on the conclusion.  Even having the story drag as much as it did, the ending just seemed to be rushed.  There was no delightful "ah-ha" moment for me - it all stemmed anticlimactic.The heroine, Olivia, was a woman who overcame much from her childhood, earning her MBA and heading up a successful charity.  However, no matter how hard I tried to, I just couldn't like her.  She flip flopped so often emotionally between the, "woe is me" and the ball buster personna, that it gave me a serious case of whiplash.  The heroes, Joshua and Ian, should have easily rung my alpha male bell, but instead felt flat and one dimensional to me.  Seriously, living in Fate Harbor, where they were both acutely aware of several polyamorous households, it never occurred to them that they could have a multi partner relationship with Olivia?  I found the most interesting characters were Leif and Caleb, and even then the multiple references to the attention they were paying Isabella got old, fast.  I'm hoping that when Leif and Caleb's story is written, the plot will flow more smoothly and have more sexual tension.As much as I wanted to love this story, I simply did not feel engaged for the most part, and that left me disappointed.  Caitlyn O'Leary does get credit for making Protecting Olivia a story that's more than a poor excuse for a plot insinuated in between sex scenes, which is a common pitfall in this genre, but it wasn't enough to make me wild about the book.