Review: Fun Read, Unconventional Choices . . .
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 30, 2013
Liked this a lot, particularly the author's unconventional choices for this genre. An independent woman of thirty-nine who lives with her two pit bulls (who she refers to as her "boys") and is unconcerned about marriage and family, falls in love with a man of forty-five. Bold choices by Olivia Jakes and earned her one star for that bravery alone. And then the author made a conventional turn and made the male protagonist wealthy and controlling, and with a penchant for lite-BDSM, which we have all seen before ad nauseam in other books. Still, her heroine had just enough originality to keep me interested and her hero was incredibly sexy in his certainty about what (and who) he wanted so that saved the day. Where I lost some interest was the insistence in writing in a villain (really, is that still necessary?) when the internal conflicts of the relationship were quite enough to keep the reader (or I should speak for myself) interested. And finally, there was something about the sex scenes that -- though they were certainly hot enough -- read slightly differently, as though the author was observing them, rather than convincing us the protagonists were experiencing them. It was a very subtle change in the point of view, but it distracted me. The book ended on a note that was fulfilling and pleasant, leaving very few open questions. One got the sense that the characters had things to work through but would do so.