Review: Disappointing Heroine
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 08 14, 2012
I felt like there was so much potential for this story but it was all blown by an incredibly disappointing heroine.The story begins promisingly with Olivia's past love, Luc, showing up unexpectedly at her work - little did she know that he had a new name and that she'd recommended he be hired for a job based on his publications! Big oops! He's thrilled because he thinks it means that she's finally ready to be with him after pushing him out the door and declaring she never wanted to see him again at the end of their relationship ten years earlier.  It doesn't take him long to find out the reason why - she had a 6 year old daughter that he knew nothing about when they were together because Melissa was being raised by her grandparents.Olivia's got plenty of good secrets, and some good reasons for those secrets, but she also makes a lot of seriously stupid decisions.  The thing is, I'd be able to connect with her anyway and be more understanding of those stupid decisions if it wasn't for her job as a highly respected psychiatrist.  She should know better than to lie to her daughter and say that her father was a dead war hero.  And plan on telling her daughter the truth about the abusive man who demanded Olivia get an abortion when Melissa turns TWENTY FIVE. Seriously? I could almost understand someone doing that... if they weren't shrink.Plus then there's the fact that every time she gets a single mother in her office she consistently tries to put her own warped philosophy on them - that they need to be strong and independent and that they shouldn't allow a man to help them, even if the man wants to. Like wow... how did this woman get her professional reputation again?Unfortunately the heroine's constant bad decisions and hypocrisy really took away my enjoyment of this book in light of what her character should have been like. I think there were a lot of other directions her character could have gone in, within these circumstances, that would have made the book stellar.I've enjoyed a lot of Mona Risk's other books and I'll be sticking to them.