Review: Good read!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 18, 2013
It's difficult to categorise this story because it's not really a romance, not really a detective/mystery whodunit, and not really a thriller. It's a bit of all three. In the beginning, I was caught up in the budding romance between Vance and Melissa; then the issue with Tara escalated, and I wanted to know what had happened to her; of course, after that I wanted to discover who the villians of the story were; and as the villians were slowly revealed, I kept reading, wondering how they would be caught or stopped.I enjoyed the story very much as it moved forward at a good pace, although I feel there could be stronger character development because there is more focus on the events unfolding than on the characters of Vance and Melissa. I really liked the fact that, for once, the male lead was an ordinary guy and not the most jaw-dropping specimen of male beauty that any woman would ever have the pleasure to see. (I read a lot of romance!) Vance is portrayed as a guy who struggles with common doubts and fears, but who wants to protect and help Melissa and do what's right. The nature of his job places him in a unique position to help her, and their romance is sweet, as another reviewer has mentioned. However, I would've liked to have more information on what drew him to Melissa and sparked his interest in her. We also don't exactly know what causes Melissa to fall for him -- other than that he's being caring, understanding and is there for her during a difficult time. There is some witty banter between the two of them, which I liked, but I felt the dialogue was a little stiff at times and that more emotion could be injected into their encounters.The writer uses a third person omniscient point of view, which means that we get to see into various characters' thoughts and perspectives. This caused the story to jump around a bit and took a bit of getting used to. We would be in one scene with Vance and Melissa, then jump to a completely different scene in a different place with other characters. Fortunately, the scene changes were clearly marked, so there was no confusion when this happened. Some scenes were perhaps unnecessary, especially the ones where Mrs Giamonte (Vance and Melissa's landlady -- they both live in the same apartment building) is chatting with the other tenants in the building about Vance and Melissa.Which brings me to the secondary characters in the story. Mrs Giamonte and Ginger, Melissa's receptionist, are both amusing, but don't seem to play any role in the story except to provide comic relief. Ginger, in particular, irritated me a lot because her comments were so irrelevant and contributed nothing to the story. I liked that Vance had his own friend and support in Len, his co-worker, and that Len didn't give him the stereotypical male advice that we often see in some chick-lit/romance novels.Where the writing is concerned, I found it strange how every male character is referred to as "mister", as in Mrs Giamonte calls Vance "Mister Tibbet" (not "Mr Tibbet"), and when the author refers to certain people they are also called "Mister Reynolds", "Mister Phelps", and so on. Another reviewer has also mentioned the use of "passed" instead of "past" (eg. "she was waved passed by the security guard"). There were other minor word choice mistakes which didn't bug me much, but this particular one was difficult to overlook since it was continually repeated.One two-star reviewer mentioned "sordid sexual content" and I feel the need to clarify as this might also be a trigger for some people. There are no explicit sexual scenes with Vance and Melissa. However, the story does contain a little sexual content, but only where necessary to the plot. Please be aware of SPOILER:****MAJOR SPOILER BELOW****............There is some non-consensual sexual activity (rape). It is not in great detail and is told in fragments of flashbacks.