Review: Enjoyable but rushed
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 20, 2014
"It was humiliating! How could caterer Sophie Westbrook ever face the sexy Italian hotel tycoon again after the way she’d practically thrown herself at him six years earlier…and ended up in his bed? Yet here she was back in his hotel wearing only a G-string and a smile.Maximus Rinaldi is not pleased to find a half-naked exotic dancer in the middle of his business meeting…until he discovers she’s the mystery woman he shared one unbelievable night with years ago. Max is determined to win her back into his bed, but Sophie has a secret that might just turn the sexy Italian playboy’s life upside down"In many ways, this is a cute  tale.  The first chapter had me laughing so hard at the comedy of errors.  I enjoyed it. There were many such pleasurable moments.When we start to read a romance novel, we know how it is going to end.  Our Heroine and Our Hero will overcome the obstacles that keep them apart, declare their love for each other and at the very least get engaged if not married.  That's what happens in this story.  Except it felt rushed.In the back story, Our Heroine has a one night stand with a gorgeous man.  She does this to make herself feel better about her mother's death.  Not sure that would be an effective cure but maybe that's what she had to tell herself to convince herself to have Our Hero.  She gets pregnant and doesn't tell Our Hero because she has Daddy Issues of her own.  What those are, we don't know until almost the end of the story. But due to her Daddy Issues, she is going to make it on her own, refusing to do the right thing and tell her baby's father.Our Hero has his issues.  He was abandoned at an orphanage when he was 2 years.  I find it implausible that he was not adopted.  He grew up to be a gorgeous man so I am confident he was a gorgeous child.  But we are supposed to suspend our credulity and believe no one wanted him.  This of course sets up his Issues.  He translates the abandonment and no adoption into a pledge that he will never marry. We are told this in a couple of sentences.  It's not enough.  What happened in the orphanage? Because it doesn't seem enough of a reason to me.  He wasn't abused.  He was cared for, clothed, fed, educated. He lucked out with a job and became a billionaire at a young age. Seems to me as if he had a better life than many kids with families, so I am left wondering why ion earth he would have issues. I just don't think growing up in an orphanage is enough of an explanation.They meet again in the really funny first chapter. She fails to keep the child a secret and Our Hero decides his son will grow up knowing his father because Our Hero never knew his.  Good for him. Men need to take responsibility for the children they beget.But it is at this point where the author lost me.  Our Hero decides to whisk Our Heroine and child off to Italy.  Just like that?  What about passports? One cannot get a passport in mere days in this country. Why would a five year old have a passport?  The author makes the point over and over that Our Heroine struggles to make ends meet so where would she get the money to travel to foreign countries accompanied by her son?Which brings up a discontinuity... If Our Heroine has such huge financial struggles how could she possibly afford a two bedroom apartment in Manhattan? I googled that very question and they start as low as $2800.00 a month to $6000.00 a month.  Plus she pays an employee.  But at the same time she has enough cash flow to cater one of Our Hero's events for free.  Nope, not buying it.Off they go to Tuscany.  Seriously?  Tuscany yet again?  Italy has other states which are also beautiful.  But ever since the movie Under the Tuscan Sun, it is as if the rest of Italy doesn't exist.  "Tuscan" has seemingly 100% replaced "Italian" as the adjective to describe Italian things. Tuscan this, Tuscan that.  Always Tuscany. (Kudos to Jennifer Blake for setting a story on the Amalfi coast.  A welcome relief from Tuscany.)When we arrive in Tuscany (...sigh...) Our Heroine makes sure she and the child share the same bedroom.  Which apparently doesn't stop Our Heroine and Hero from having really hot sex in her bedroom.  I kept wonder where was Alex?Back in Manhattan, Our Heroine's father flies in from LA to have a talk with his daughter.  It's been five years since they last spoke.  She won't speak with him.  He writes her a letter which she doesn't read for a few days.  She reads it and it makes all the difference to her.  Suddenly every thing is clear and it all makes sense.  I didn't buy it.  I know something about living with mental illness and I simply do not believe in this day and age, an intelligent child would not have figured out that her mother was bi-polar.  Especially since she was an adult when her mother died.  She reads it and suddenly she can trust again.Our Hero also undergoes an abrupt transformation and suddenly he wants a marriage and a family. That didn't seem real to me either.There were also several occasions when words were missing from the text.  There is no excuse for sloppy editing like that.On the whole, I feel like this story is more of an outline than a well-developed plot.  I wish the author had taken more time, wrote a longer story, explored the complications rather than gloss over them. We are told stuff, not shown it.  Now I have no idea when in her career she wrote this.  To me it reads like the work of an inexperienced author.  But one in whom I see potential.