Review: Interesting start to an intriguing new series
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 27, 2014
Complimentary copy provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.Eva is an American living in Dublin, escaping a past that she would rather leave behind. She has a job at Ignitetech, headed by the über mysterious “Mr. Doe” of which she has worked for nearly a year. Nina is one of those people that just fades into the background, and she likes it that way. One day at work, she receives an invitation to the company ball. Fretting about the ball and a date, she decides to take to the Internet, finding a high-priced male escort service. It is on the site that she begins chatting with “Julian”, and quickly their online contact turns into a raucous week of sex and pushing Eva’s limits. Julian is intent on Eva finding whom she truly is inside. He knows she’s not the wallflower she seems to think she is and Eva finds herself agreeing.Julian is hot, hung, and incredibly wealthy. He’s a high-class escort that takes on exclusive clientele, or so he leads Eva to believe. He’s not interested in getting paid though, when it comes to Eva. He sees her as a challenge; he’s going to prove to her that she is worth so much more than she believes she is. Julian is hiding some pretty major secrets though, secrets that could destroy Eva.The illustrious “Mr. Doe”, CEO of Ignitetech is a self-made man and serial womanizer that has no problem sleeping with half of his female staff, even though they’ve never seen his face. He’s a mystery to everyone, and the yearly masquerade ball he hosts only feeds that mystery.Rules of Harte was reasonably well written and was certainly engaging. There were several instances where the American character said things that were decidedly not American, however it didn’t detract too much from the story. The relationships between the characters though I think are what bothered me the most. Whether it is Eva and her co-workers or Julian, there just seemed to be something “missing”. We get no idea why her co-worker Nathan is as needy as he is (other than being a social misfit himself), or why her purported BFF and co-worker Shelly is so quick to turn on her. I really just felt as though there was a whole lot missing to the story, that after the completion of an entire book, we should have been privy to a bit more.Don’t get me wrong, this book was intriguing and the sex between Eva & Julian was molten, however there just seemed to be more questions than answers, and the cliffhanger ending did nothing to help with any sort of resolution. I felt as though the “big” resolution, or reveal, was pretty obvious all along (except of course to Eva) so I feel like this book really strung me along, just waiting for me to buy the next book. I would have liked more character development, especially in regards to both Eva & Julian’s pasts as their past relationships have certainly affected their current abilities to relate to others.I’m definitely looking forward to the next book and will continue on with the series. I can only hope that we will soon find some answers to the many questions we’re left with at the end of this book. Three and a half stars.