Review: Alright contemporary romance
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 12, 2014
2.5-3 starsThis was an okay story. I liked Johnny and Jewel and their story was alright but had some holes in the story that left me with questions at the end. This is the first book I've read by this author and based on this I'm unlikely to read more of her work in the future.Jewel is a waitress and is a divorcee. Her marriage wasn't the best but we don't have a lot of details except that it wasn't great and she's been divorced for 10 years. Because of issues in her past, Jewel has mental issues and sees a therapist regularly as she doesn't believe she's meant to find happiness and doesn't feel she has much to live for.Johnny is an artist. He made it big and got rich but he lost his father to a drunk driver years ago. He had a fiancee that cheated on him but he broke it off and refuses to get back with her. Johnny's brother seems to be some sort of jerk but we're not given the back story. To escape all this, Johnny decides to leave New York and go out to the country to find himself.Johnny has been roaming the small town he's in, painting beautiful murals around town. He tends to dress in ragged clothing, has a beard and pushes his supplies around in a shopping cart some everyone thinks he's a bum. Jewel overhears some local teens talking about their plans to prank Johnny so she finds where he lives and goes to warn him. When she finds his place and they cross paths it's an automatic attraction between them. Their relationship becomes hot and heavy very quickly and it's also pretty much a love at first sight for them both. They both have obviously painful pasts and they sooth each other. Jewel doesn't understand why Johnny wants her (as she's convinced she's not pretty and nothing special) but she's fallen for him and is willing to take whatever he'll give her. Johnny seems to need Jewel just as much, finding something in her that completes him and fills the gap in his life. Things escalate between them very quickly and we get some drama thrown in as the story is climaxing. Jewel and Johnny manage to get past the drama and come together to start their HEA.I enjoyed this story but I felt it had potential to be better. I liked Johnny and Jewel but would have liked to get to know them more because I felt a lot didn't get said about who they are and their pasts. That was sort of the case with the plot as well....there were some things that were brought in with no explanation and then left. Most of these points weren't major ones but there were enough gaps that overall it took down the story for me. Overall, I felt the story was alright and fortunately I got this for free on Amazon. :)