Review: 3.5 stars for well-written and entertaining collection.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 17, 2014
To be frank, I would have rated at least one of these stories higher if it stood alone, rather than being part of this collection.The first story is not as advertised ("A Negotiated Marriage"), it's actually a story called, "Bittersweet". And it's easily the best of the three. It's a story about a young mother who loses her husband and has to negotiate the rather tricky bond she's previously had with his attractive, aloof cousin. It's well-written, poignant, a little bit spicy and realistic. Easily 4 stars.The second story, "Escorted", was different. It took me quite a while to warm up to the idea of a successful romance novelist hiring a male prostitute to introduce her to sex. The story developed better as it went on, but I never loved it.The third story, "Missing", was well-written and had some touching moments about an uber-successful, single dad struggling with teenage daughters and a relationship with the heroine. Again, I never really loved it, but I acknowledge it was a little different and the characters were well developed.One off-putting thing was that the author's approach to intimate scenes was a bit repetitive in each book. The heroes all seemed to have similar techniques, if you know what I mean ;) Not a fatal flaw, but a bit annoying if you read them one after the other, as I did.Still, for the dollars, it was an entertaining enough read for the holidays.