Review: Could have been even better
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 6, 2013
This is a pretty cute story and I really didn't dislike it as much as my rating might suggest.  But it has so many issues that you're reading this fairly enjoyable love story and are constantly distracted by moments of "Huh!?"  Examples: 1) At least twice when characters are referred to by the wrong name. 2) When someone suggests you can't keep a skillet in the oven because you might accidentally "melt" it.  Really?  Pans can't get hot?  3) When a character says his wife, who is two weeks from her due date, will be put on bed rest if she has any more contractions.  I don't think so.  Contractions at this point are not cause for concern.  They are cause for having a baby. 3) A character leaves the heroine, goes home and frets then decides to order flowers.  Meanwhile, she walks away from the door and the flowers arrive.  Sending flowers back in time?  Cool trick. 4) When one character says Valentine's Day is Thursday, then two characters get together on Thursday looking forward to their Valentine's dinner the next day.  5) The entire scene involving clearing up an embezzlement issue.  A man drives somewhere a half hour away in the middle of the afternoon.  He gets there and spends "more than two hours" working on something, they watch more "hours tick by" and just as I'm imagining them working into the night someone says it's five o'clock.  What happened to the hours and hours?  Then they go to the police station and someone wishes he could have let someone know where he was.  He didn't have a chance during those hours and hours?  They go to the police station specifically to show some evidence.  After "they'd been at it for hours" a cop says, "I'd like to see what you consider evidence."  Then the police explain that they'd already come to the same conclusion (that someone else is guilty) and aren't going to waste any time making arrests. Also during this time, the guy's political opponent is constantly referred to as "the opponent."  The man doesn't have a name?  6) A book called "7 Blind Dates" that by my count only has 4.  Of the 6 listed in the description, one never happens and one is not a blind date, but is arranged by the heroine herself. 7) A woman who is so close to her best friend that she calls the friend's parents Mom and Dad (which personally I think is pretty weird), but has never met the brother.  It is never explained how this is possible.As for the story, it's good if you don't mind a guy who's planning his proposal after he's known someone a week.  He moves fast and does the typical wooing.  It's mostly sweet.  Bella becomes a bit unlikable as she strings him along though.  Her initial reason for not dating Jeff is that she doesn't want to upset her "family" if things don't work out.  But this seems a little hollow once he's declared his feelings and she continues to spend as much time with him as possible as long as they don't call it a date.UPDATE 11/23/13 - I received an email from Amazon a few weeks ago that a revised version of this story was available.  I wanted to reread the whole book to determine if my opinion should also be revised.  Unfortunatley, I just haven't been able to find the time. I have a backlog of books I haven't even read once.  I did skim through it though and found that most of the minor annoyances I mentioned above have been edited.  I bumped my rating up a star for this.  The ending, however, still doesn't quite work for me.  **potential spoiler**  Most of the drama seems to hinge on Jeff not finding time to tell Bella where his is.  I don't believe he couldn't send a one-sentence text.