Review: Frankie & Benny
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 10, 2014
At Peace is one of my favourite KA books. I loved Cal, Vi and the girls. Frankie and Benny featured at the end of that book and I was desperate to read their love story so this one has been a long time coming.It started off promising. I loved Benny. Yes he's a KA alpha male but a laid back one. He never really loses it and rarely gets angry. He has realised how much he and his family hurt Frankie and he wants to make amends and prove to her that she's the woman for him. I liked Frankie in At Peace, her story of dating Benny's brother until he died and then being single for 7 years was intriguing but in this book, she seemed a little different. Yes she argues with Benny in the beginning but further along, she just became and amalgamation of every other KA heroine.Frankie forgives Benny's parents for the way they treated her. Basically, this is covered by KA telling not showing. Frankie and Benny begin a relationship but not a sexual one as she is recovering from being shot helping to rescue Vi. Then Frankie starts to feel she's not good enough for Benny so she makes a decision and Benny's not happy but I was surprised he didn't put up much of a fight. Once their issues are resolved they begin a sexual relationship and there is a lot of sex in this book. Benny says all the right things. He's almost perfect!Frankie has a dysfunctional family. She's also into her career which means her and Benny have to be apart a lot. The mystery element comes in around 70% and I've got to admit I was bored. I had to skim a lot of it as it just held no interest for me. For fans of the Rock Chicks, she brings in two Rock Chick characters but that series never interested me much so again, I found that boring.I loved that Cal, Vi and his girls featured a lot in this story and we learnt more of their happy ever after (although admittedly, we had learnt it before in their epilogue). I'm not that the final book in The Burg Series will feature Cheryl who was in book one. Her story doesn't hold any interest for me.As for the epilogue in this book...KA is known for her great epilogues but since she got a publishing deal her epilogues have not been as great and that was the case with this one.Overall, I didn't love it and I didn't hate it. It was just 'ok' but as with the last four or so KA books I've read, I'm just disappointed each time. Yes she has a formula and yes that worked for me for a while but now I'm reading them feeling like she has just cut and pasted from her previous books. There is nothing new. Each character says the same thing. I just don't understand why she can't mix it up a bit and try something new. There's no denying she's a good romance writer but there has just been something missing lately and so I'm always feeling disappointed because I do love her writing.