Review: Obsessed with detached characters
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 06 3, 2013
I'm sure i'm 50 years older than Ms Cresent because it would seem as I was 10% into the book before i realized the writing reflected the daily speech pattern of 'ordinary' Londoner. And not just plain ol' english instead.I gave this book two stars because I could not relate to the female main character. Not because she was British but because i could not understand her reasoning.If I were about to be attacked by my boyfriend and managed to put a door between the two of us and by myself some time. My first call would be to the police and the second to my [protector]. God bless the first person to get there.So when this heroine didn't call the police  I had to know why. I was hooked, then and there I thought the story was getting interesting. For once I felt that not skipping forward was paying off. I turn the page to find the reason. The female lead did not call the police because she "[did not] want them to know". I learned this as she explained it hurriedly while on the phone to the the male main and her love interest during her second, successful, phone call to him.I had to ask: didn't want them to know what exactly? Now if you can relate to this characters mind-set then it won't bother you but it irked the hell out of me. So I got stuck.Why does the abusive boyfriend get off because she didn't want the police to know...something? It undermines everything she does next! So even when she makes a last minute jab at him while leaving, escorted by the love interest, it seems that she only grows a spine when surrounded by knights.I read on hoping for some explanation as to why the abusive boyfriend is not getting to learn prison etiquette. There is none. She settles in with the main male lead and then calls her family to give them the run down of the scene.At this point 25% of the book is completed and I can not go on. The book is expensive for the content, character development for the female lead is rushed, plot layering is uneven, diverging point that is a potential leeway into the next of the series is also rushed which leaves it a bit unhinged from reality and very much like fiction.Already this is not a series I think I will be continuing. Request for refund made.I also wonder why this group of men can not hold onto their women, and why these women don't fight more. Putting up a front until the cavalry arrives is not always a good strategy ladies and being predictable makes kidnappers grunt work easy. Two stars for faux independent female characters that are constantly in the way of harm and easily unnerved. I read somewhere about a self defense studio and realized either i imagined it or it was a thought in passing from one of the male leads that desperately needed to be elaborated upon.