Review: Great potential, but still missing something
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 12 14, 2013
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.Hold Me Together by Felice Fox is a well written book that flows naturally, however, the story has some holes in it and lacks creativity. I had difficulty accepting the story premise and I needed more character development in order to understand and accept the hero and heroine’s actions.Hold Me Together starts right after Gavin and Holly say their “I do’s.” As they begin their wedding night, Gavin surprises his wife with an outrageous suggestion to enter into a polyamorous relationship. He ties her up to their bed and she is forced to accept his wishes. From there Holly has to decide if this is the kind of life and marriage she wants.Understandably, Holly expresses shock at her husband’s suggestion. Yet she comes to accept the situation pretty rapidly and even craves it. Holly explains her acceptance because of her great desire to be a part of a family unit but I never really felt the emptiness that she claims to have experiences as a youngster. If I had, I might better understand her. I was also really bothered by Gavin’s actions. For a man who claims he loves his wife, there was no reasonable explanation for what he did to her on their wedding night of all nights.I just didn’t feel that I knew enough about either of these characters to accept and understand why they acted the way they did. Gavin was the hero in the story but he seemed almost a secondary character for me and not very hero-like. I could not understand why he would want to share his wife with others. What was he getting from this situation? I have read other ménage/polyamory relationship books so it’s not that I don’t like these types of relationships. But in those books the men explain what this type of relationship does for them and why they prefer it.Holly’s actions confused me. It was just not believable for me; not so much that she accepted the idea, but at how easily she did. I would have expected more angst about the situation. Unfortunately the difficulties with believability extended to Holly’s relationships with Gavin’s brothers. The reader was not provided with scenes that either showed or explained how Holly came to care for Gavin’s extended family.On a positive note, I enjoyed Ms. Fox’s writing style. The writing itself flowed naturally and the dialogue was natural and authentic which is not easy to accomplish. There is great potential in this book if there was just a better understanding of character motivations. Hold Me Together is the first book in Ms. Fox’s planned series about the Cameron men. Hopefully Ms. Fox can add more character development in the next books because she has the potential to create a great series.