Review: A beautiful start to a well-written series!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 11 14, 2013
Lily has been running from the fallout of a family tragedy for the past three years. She has been unable to let anyone new into her life for fear that she will lose him or her as well. She works as a romance novelist from her beach bungalow in Florida after escaping Colorado. She has few friends, and certainly no love life, with no desire to change that.Enter Kyle. Ohhhhh, Kyle.  Kyle is tall, dark, handsome, rich...an alpha male with an incredibly sweet side. Kyle is the perpetual player, in town on business when he meets Lily on the beach.  The problem is Kyle lives in Lake Tahoe; could he really convince Lily to take a chance on him?Beautiful Chances is very well written. The language and description used to illustrate their burgeoning relationship really conveys the depth of their connection. Ms. Rae explores all aspects of their interactions with one another; the tenderness of making love for the first time, to the primal need of just needing to get thoroughly f#@%ed. It's all there, in vivid, although not crass detail.My only problem with that is there is a LOT of it. We all know that when we start out in a relationship that is how it goes, everyone is insatiable, but for the sake of the storyline, it was too much. There was a very major plot twist in the book that wasn't explored nearly as much as it could have been before the book was over. We're left with a cliffhanger and it seems that there was little resolution, but a whole lot of sex. Half the amount of sex could have been edited out and there would still be plenty left (and yes, it was hot!). I think the storyline really suffered from the lack of plot development.The character development, on the other hand, is amazing. I truly love Lily and Kyle as a couple and can really feel that he is genuinely willing to help "mend" her. He is in tune with the way her mind thinks and is there to help her before she begins to second-guess herself, as she is wont to do. It's not just their relationship either. It's Lily's relationship with her cousins; Kyle's with his family...the dialog is incredible and believable. While the overall theme of the book is quite tragic, there were several scenes where I found myself smiling due to the interactions of characters.I give Beautiful Chances four stars simply because of how well it is written. I appreciate how Ms. Rae was able to use the written word to craft a story that was incredibly easy to visualize. While I am a fan of series books, I do not like cliff enders, especially when there was little resolved in the first book.