Review: My enthusiasm waned . . .
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 11 24, 2012
I love books about unconventional women, and the heroine, Lucy, in this book was definitely not your quintessential female romatic lead. She's been around the block a few times and was unapologetic about it, which I loved about her. Then she develops what I can only call a fixation on Nick, a sexy, scarred (literally and figuratively) police detective who is assigned to protect her when her life is under threat. Her pathological pursuit of Nick to end a dry spell of six whole months (oh, honey, that's not a dry spell!) during which she's had had no sex partners starts off as completely understandable and then morphs into something a little smarmy. This is where things started to go south for me. When it was clear he wasn't into the casual sex thing,  her constant sexual aggression began to look a little . . . harrassing, honestly. I could no longer understand Lucy's motivation in "seducing" Nick and understood her even less when once she was successful, she got all skittish and decided that she needed to reject him. She does and he retreats, so what does she do? She seduces him yet again. And then decides that no, she really means it this time, this has to end! She cannot be with Nick because he wants a relationship. In the meantime, Nick who began as a confident Alpha male, changes before our very eyes into this sad sack character who takes all Lucy dishes out and keeps coming back for more. What I enjoyed about this book was the unconventional chase (woman agressively chasing man, instead of vice versa) and as a theme, would love to see this author flesh that out in other books. What I did not like was the explanation we're eventually given for Lucy's sexual liberation - turns out, it's not that she's sexually liberated, or in touch with her sexuality, but that she is damaged by a disappearing father. That cop-out and the hero's transformation into a wuss did not sit well with me. Good writer, but had some challenges with dialogue at points and the suspense elements of the story felt like they were just half-heartedly thrown in there to give the writer a good cover for why the H and h were cooped up together in a house for an extended period of time uninterrupted by the annoyances of everyday life and secondary characters. Ended up being 3.5 stars. Recommended for a fun read, but I suspect, not this author's best work.