Review: Can't Let Go?  I Don't Think He's Ever Tried To Hold On
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 27, 2014
This was a mostly enjoyable story, but had a hero who needed to be kicked to the curb--after he was kicked on the shins a few times.  I know I'm overly fond of shin kicks, but sometimes you just keep running into people who need their shins kicked.  It's not my fault, really.So, this is a heroine who comes from an abusive, alcoholic and drug abusing mother who makes her living getting pregnant and blackmailing her wealthy and married lovers to keep their wives from finding out they've been straying.  The heroine has managed to extract herself from this toxic environment and make something of herself by opening and running an upscale boutique and continues to keep an eye on her younger half-sister who is still with their shared mother.  She fell in love and moved in with the man (our hero) who put up the money for her start up and remains a silent partner in her business.  Opposed to their relationship is the hero's mentor who seems to hate the heroine and is not shy about letting her know she is not worthy of the hero's attentions whenever he is not around.  The plot thickens here.When the sister calls the heroine for help, she is forced to step between her sister and her mother who likes to make her points to her daughters by slapping them around.  Both escape the mother with some bruises and the heroine brings her sister to the penthouse she shares with the hero while she sorts out the sister's problems.  However the younger sister is pregnant, a fact the heroine confirms with a test and both the mother and the baby's father want her sister to terminate the pregnancy, neither care what the sister wants.  The heroine waits for the man she loves to come home so she can consult with him and get his opinion on how best to protect her sister's future. Boy, does she get a surprise.The hero finds the pregnancy test first and draws some ugly conclusions.  He confronts the heroine and accuses her of trying to trap him, just as his mentor said she would, and lets her know in gutter terms what he thinks of her, that he is aware of her family situation--courtesy of his mentor, that he will remove the child from such a grasping and unworthy mother and then slams out.  The stunned heroine does what any self-respecting woman would do, she leaves.  The hero returns the next day to apologize, but it's too late--she's gone and she intends to stay gone.  He spends a year trying to get her back and explain, that he really didn't mean it when he was telling her what a no account, low life, scum of the earth wh@re (ammy restriction) she was.  It seems some people just take these kinds of things so personally.That is where the book begins.  The hero is stalking the heroine in a very genteel, upper class way trying to get her to relent; she is avoiding him whenever possible and has relocated her sister from New York to Texas to keep her out of their mother's orbit and is considering moving there herself; and, oh yeah, the hero's mentor still hates her--really REALLY hates her.  At least now she knows why, he is her father and has been blackmailed since the heroine's birth by mommy to finance her habit.  Her mother thinks it's a fine joke.The sister is killed by a drunk driver, leaving the heroine bereft and the custodian of a young baby.  Hero steps into the breach to try and win some forgiveness points.  The mentor throws a spanner into the works by withholding further money from mommy unless the heroine stops seeing the hero, so mommy decides she may as well try for custody of the baby for what she can get from her daughter.  Hero makes his move by telling the heroine they must marry in order to stave off the custody bid.  Daddy/mentor blows and hero catches him beating the heroine and has to rescue her.  Lots of excitement, but it falls apart a little here.At the hospital, where a bruised and traumatized heroine needs some support the hero...yells at her for not telling him the mentor was his father and leaves her there, alone.  He hires bodyguards and insists heroine and baby move back into his penthouse but otherwise ignores the heroine, then he leaves when they get there.  When the heroine tries to call him, he tells her not to bother him and hangs up.  After a week of this, the heroine finds her spine again and leaves for Texas.At this point, the "child becomes seriously ill and has to be rushed to the hospital to allow the hero to reinsert himself without having the heroine flatten his head with a skillet" plot device is rolled out.  While the heroine is with her niece, prior to the hero's tardy arrival, she learns that her mother is dead of an overdose. Another blow for her to absorb, but it has a silver lining.  She takes this as a sign that she no longer needs to marry the hero and gives him back his ring when he finally makes an appearance.  Since she was in a hospital with witnesses and there was no skillet handy, it's probably the best she could do under the circumstances.  If it were me, I'd probably start toting around a larger bag so I could have that skillet handy cuz she's going to need it since this hero seems to react to crises by yelling at the heroine and running away for a while. The rest of the tale consists of the hero convincing the heroine he loves her and insisting, "he never meant to be away so long she thought he was never coming back."  Really?!?Don't get me wrong, it was a very interesting book and I enjoyed it (although I really wanted this guy's shins kicked), but I thought the ending was weak.  The heroine had been strong in not taking the hero's...solid waste product (another ammy concession) for the first offense, but let him talk her around after the second, and in my opinion, worse offense.  Maybe she was getting tired, maybe she was still shell shocked from everything, but he needed to work harder to regain his ground.  That's why it's not a five star.For those who are sensitive to sexual situations, yes there is some sex.  There is not a lot of sex and it's relatively mild, but it's there.  The text is almost entirely free of typos, a big thank you for that and there was angst coming out all the character's ears for those who are looking for it.  With a stronger ending, it would have been better, but it was still a very decent read.  If only the hero had received some kicks...maybe next time.