Review: Good, but not quite "great"
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 2, 2014
Complimentary copy provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.Arianna has fled from one abusive relationship to another. Jonny, back in her small hometown in Nevada, is a respected businessman. When his abuse lands her in the hospital for nearly two weeks she escapes to LA where she assumes a whole new identity (as Natalie) and quickly finds herself married to Aaron, an entertainment executive. She then finds out that the man she married is not who he seemed to be and again finds herself in an abusive situation. So when the opportunity to flee to Vegas and start all over again presents itself, she is all over it. It is there Arianna is able to reconnect not only with her best friend, but also with her mother, whom she hasn’t seen in a year and a half, setting herself up to put her life back together.Denham King is the owner of the hotel that Arianna is staying at. Her best friend’s boyfriend happens to be the brother of Denham and Denham, being the type of guy he is, takes Arianna in and allows her the use of a penthouse suite at the hotel. Denham is your typical tall, dark, rich, handsome alpha male. He knows from the beginning that Arianna is keeping secrets, it’s just a matter of time before he can break down those walls and find out what they are and get her to trust again.The heat between Arianna and Denham is sizzling and makes for some major sexual tension. There is a lot of the back and forth angsty issues; self-doubt, ex-lovers, lack of communication, etc. that make it a little hard to connect with the characters. Add into it some stereotypical alpha behavior from Denham and you’ve got a formula that we’ve seen before. The storyline is interesting, but it’s not necessarily one that kept me on the edge of my seat.Arianna and Denham are both holding on to a lot of secrets and couple that with secrets that Arianna’s husband Aaron has and sometimes you just feel a little left in the dark; like you’re just not being let in on the big secret. I really would have liked to see a little more resolution of some of the issues, but we’ll have to wait until the next book for those.Holding Aces was a quick read and well written. Unfortunately it just lacked that “wow” factor that would make it stand out from any other book with a similar storyline. The simple fact that Arianna, after two abusive relationships would be so quick to jump into a brand new relationship with a relative stranger was unbelievable, and to be honest, made me not like or respect the character all that much. Yes, Denham seemed to be a much different man that the types Arianna usually goes for, however you would expected a whole lot more caution from someone that had been burned more than once.The book ends on a pretty major cliffhanger so if they’re not your sort of thing, you may want to wait until the next book in the series, High Stakes, comes out this fall. I’m definitely curious as to how the story is going to play itself out and will likely stick around for the next book. A solid three and a half stars.