Review: Great storyline, but too many things fell flat for me
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 09 24, 2013
3.25 Stars!After escaping an abusive relationship, Riviera finds herself in Beaver Creek with a job doing what she loves. But her momentary peace is disrupted when Shan storms into her life and makes her feel things she's never felt before. Only beginning to recover from past wounds, both literal and figurative, she's afraid to let him in. But she's not the only one experiencing new feelings. Shan never thought he'd let anyone past the walls he built, but after meeting Riviera all he wanted to do was keep her close. Together they begin to overcome their tragic pasts through love, and hope it's enough to keep the demons away.The Good:This book had a great storyline that a lot of women can relate to and feel for, and it really pulled on the heartstrings. Riviera had such an awful and tragic past, and I really sympathized for her. It was great to see her being so strong and begin to move on.I really liked the uniqueness of Riviera's job (she was a painter and did murals). I haven't read many books about artists and it was really cool and interesting.Shan was sweet and hot, and I liked that he didn't push Riviera to tell him anything she didn't want to."I want you to have the fairy tale, Riviera, the one you should've had... the one you deserve to have now."When the second plot came into play at the end of the book, things became fast paced and I really wanted to see what would happen.The Not So Good:It was written in third person, and I really wish it had been been in first person. I just didn't like it and there were times that sentences would switch between characters without making it clear.Excluding the beginning and end of the book, things were kind of slow paced and it was easy to put down. There were two plots: Riviera overcoming her past, and her past coming back to get her, and the second one isn't put into play until the very end. There wasn't enough going on, and it started to lose my interest.The side characters didn't add much to the story besides adding to the plot. As characters, they were pretty bland and didn't do anything for me.The sex scenes came in clusters, and it seemed unrealistic that they would have sex three times in a row without even a couple minute break. They must have had some major stamina, thats all I'm saying!There were some really cheesy lines that sounded too corny and dramatic for my taste. Whenever one came up, I ended up reading them in an overly dramatic soap opera voice in my head.~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~So overall, it was a nice story, but there were too many things that brought it down for me to really enjoy it.*I received an ARC for an honest review*