Review: Flawed but still a decent read
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 12 20, 2013
I was excited going into this book, but ended up feeling a bit disappointed by it. While the things that worked for me really worked for me, the things that didn't really really didn't.The good:Harrison and Siena continue to have smoking chemistry and make for some dynamic scenes.I loved how supportive Harrison is of Siena. He believes that she is good at her job and tells her so.I am always a fan of heroes who want the world to know of their love for the heroine, but who are willing to allow their romantic relationship to move at a pace that makes her comfortable.The scenes at Siena's family home (excluding Enzo) worked for me. I liked seeing the Lazio family interact, and it was nice to see Harrison integrated further into Siena's life.The bad:How fast do Charlie and Bex move? I mean, really. I would have liked to see a bit more of them as a couple, so that their trajectory in book three made more sense to me. Aside from sneaking out of hotel rooms and then having Bex ditch Charlie on a couple of occasions when Siena needs her, I didn't get much sense of their relationship.The scenes where Bex and Siena reconnect after a seemingly long time of barely talking felt repetitive and seemed like they barely worked within the book's timeline.What crawls up Enzo's culo? It was annoying in the extreme that he is completely okay with being a hypocritical juicebox to his sister, seeing as how he is dating a member of Team McClain (who's a total cow to his sister). Ugh. This kind of behavior is bad enough in Harlequin Presents novels, but I didn't expect to see it here.Some members of the press' lines of questioning at the press conferences in these books have seemed unbelievably unprofessional to me, but the one at the Lazio home seems particularly egregious. I don't believe that other journalists would find some of the questions asked to be okay. It seems to me that such a vindictive/gossipy reporter would be more likely to stir up interest in himself, than in the answers that he receives.The "mystery" in this book is not well done at all. I suspected the eventual culprit from book one, but definitely knew who it was by the second book. It disappointed me not that none of the characters suspect this person even briefly, especially considering his or her behavior in book two. The scene where it finally all adds up for Siena is only missing a neon downward arrow that says, "Bad Guy Here." The title of this third book should have been A Bunch of Red Flags. Look, Ma! I stuck with the racing theme.I guess what I'm saying is that I found this book to be a bit of a mess, aside from Harrison and Siena. I'm going to regard this more as a table-setting book, since the way that Faster Longer ends means that book 4 should be awesome and insane. If you've stuck with this series for this long, I recommend this book and that you give book 4 a chance, but I didn't love this novel as I'd hoped that I would. I keep going back and forth on the rating, but I would say that it's more of a 3.5 star book than 3.I received this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.