Review: Not Enough Substance
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 06 2, 2014
There were some things that I liked about this book - Alex had some good alpha male traits, there was definitely something interesting going on with Laura's parent's catering business, and she seemed like a fairly interesting character because she started off as a strong, independent woman who was doing her best to keep the business running, but things started to fall apart very quickly after a promising beginning.For one, we never get any real insight into Alex's motivations.  Even when he's doing things to "take care" of Laura, he's so emotionally distant while he's doing them, that when the declaration of love (at first sight, no less) finally comes, it's not at all believable.  I still felt like he must be playing her in some way.  There's no real connection between them, during the entire book.  The "relationship" building happens over 2 days (ish), after they've already married, and there's nothing deep between them during that entire time.There didn't seem to be all that much chemistry either.  Laura drove me nuts cuz, even after he told her that he would wait until SHE was comfortable enough to consummate the marriage, she kept waiting for HIM to make his move.  And then would get all "Omg, I don't think he likes me / is attracted to me, why is he making me wait?"  Uh... maybe if you tried to kiss or touch HIM then he would feel like you're interested.The most interesting part of the plot, the bad guy, was pretty much handled by Alex - we have no idea how - and again, we get very little insight into the motivations of the bad guy.  Other than Laura once turned him down for a date and he's got a grudge against Alex.  None of which actually makes sense in the real world, since the guy is supposed to be a businessman and yet he's running his business at a loss in order to screw Laura over... even though she can't actually sell the business since it's owned by her parents.There were just a lot of things that didn't make sense, a lot of things that didn't get enough explanation, and a lot of things that were very weak and without enough substance.  There are the bones of a good book there, but for a BBW romance, there's very little flesh and absolutely no curves.