Review: THE CHARACTERS MAKE THE BOOK
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 11 24, 2012
Despite a plotline that seemed implausible at best, I found Reluctant Consent to be a refreshing change from the usual DD tale.Denise Marrow is young, let's face it. And she just lost her parents. And she has three younger brothers to raise. Her mother, lord love her, tosses a wrinkle into the will stating that unless Denise marries Andrew Cross, she'll lose custody of the brothers to a nasty aunt (or at least that's Denise's opinion). Now, we get a bit of backstory on Andrew. He tried to spank her once. She got the heck outta Dodge. Now she has to marry him in order to keep the boys. THIS is the implausible part, but no matter.I loved what the author did with the characters. She drew them as real and flawed. Their actions, their dialogue, their fear and their falls were laid bare for us all to see, and it was refreshing. Andrew isn't so bad, and I love the calm dom that the author painted him as. He's thrilled of course to be 'forced' to marry this woman. He never stopped loving her. But once in the marriage, he sees how truly chaotic her life is, due, of course, to many years of loving but laissez faire parenting. He aims to stop all of that by whipping her and her brothers into shape. Here's the thing: SHE seems more reluctant than anyone. Trying to comply so she can hang on to her brothers is sometimes painful to watch, and seeing her struggles through Andrew's eyes is a nice touch too. All is not lost with these two, but what I loved loved loved about this book was the very REAL and somewhat flawed characters Saoirse introduces us to. The secondary characters are wonderful, also. The author must be raising boys because she was spot on in drawing the characters of Denise's three brothers. I loved Andrew's brother and sister-in-law, too, and their desire to help Denise and Drew through this painful time was charming.I'm a huge fan of this author's writing style and I look forward to the sequel.