Review: Potential for 5 stars, but....
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 26, 2012
Let me start with the positive:Beautiful romance.  The relationship starts in a way with a one night stand situation that goes horribly wrong.  The H/h get back together and then their relationship develops much more naturally and at a more moderate pace.  Don't worry, the usual Kristin Ashley alpha male is there (and let's face it why we all keep coming back to read her books).  This couple is probably amongst my favorites.  I know from the Good Reads reviews that some felt Belle was too wimpy, but her shyness coupled with her previous awful marriage, plus over bearing mother, made a lot of sense to me and I can see why Jack would be attracted to her.  Kind of like the same attraction you have for deer - it's beautiful and fascinating how it gracefully darts away at the first noise.  I really like Belle's profession as a dress designer, her heroic acts, and most of all her classiness - she's the type of heroine I want to identify with.I really like how this style of writing is different from the Mystery Man/Sweet Dreams.  This felt much more fairy tale like and the hero was much more balanced.  My hats off to Ashley that she can be so versatile in her styles.Okay, why this wasn't 5 stars for me.  The negative:I'm not a fan of the reincarnation story and this one got taken to complicated, rolling my eyes extreme.  The last 10% of the book fell into the usual Ashley trap of packing way too much in that it took away from the beauty of the overall storyline.Most of all, I really, really hated Belle's leech parents.  Ashley, I think was trying to go for endearing nuttiness - but Belle's mom/dad just came across as parasites.  They really ruined the book for me.  I hate people like that unless they're fully depicted as the antagonists.  The story would have been so much better if there was just the nutty, but artistic grandmother on Belle's side and then the nutty mom & ex-girlfriend on Jack's side.  As it was, there was an overload of annoying hangers-on (Angus and Cassandra sometimes fell in this boat as well) and the story would have been vastly improved with no existence of the mom/dad.I'm not sure if I would read the next one in the series which seems to be about Lachlan.  If it involves Emma, then likely not as she doesn't sound particularly special like Belle.