Review: Author talented but premise flawed
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 15, 2014
Petra's Review at Mrs Condit & Friends review blog: The book opens with Jeanie at her husband’s funeral. One of the first things that is mentioned is that Jeanie is dressed in black whereas his family are dressed in traditional Tongan funeral wear of white. Whilst reading this I assumed that she hadn’t known much about his culture, in fact initially I didn’t think they had been married for long at all but, over the course of the book, you find that she did and that in fact she blames his culture for his overeating which ultimately lead to his death so I find it odd that she has made this mistake even in her grief. In fact during much of the book I find it hard work out why she married Pono as he seems to have made her genuinely although unintentionally unhappy. Then there is Mark, Pono’s best friend, who starts making a move on Jeanie at the funeral. It may just be me but I felt his inability to restrain himself when he had apparently waited on the side lines during their marriage a little, well, sleezy!I understand that the basis of BDSM is love and trust but I also found an awful lot of the book overly wordy, explaining to Jeanie why she was never happy with her husband and her worry that her husband’s family would not accept a new relationship this soon (I could see their point!).The shame of it is that that the author appears to be talented but as I personally disagreed with the premise of the plot this was a tough one for me to rate.