Review: Big, Splashy Soap Opera ... with a Genie
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 12 21, 2013
Kristen Ashley has become one of my favorite romance authors. She can write.This book must have been her first, however.It is the silliest, splashiest, over the top soap opera I've read in a long time. It begins with such a mega-dose of heroine's family history, it was like listening to a co-worker tell one of those long-winded stories about their 'fascinating' second cousins.Loved the genie in the story, but the poor guy spent most of his time looking picturesque and being a foil for the perfect sweetness of his adoptive family who, gosh darn it, just never have a negative thought or trait.The heroine... oh, dear. Meet Mary Sue. She's perfect, she's beautiful, everyone falls in love with her on sight, she sacrifices herself for her daughter and even the big, bad hero is helpless against her feminine splendor. She suffers, but through no fault of her own--just the usual, y'know, death, crippling migraines, worst possible childbirth, hateful betrayals.The hero is ruthless, cold, calculating, and tough, all in the fine tradition of Harlequin tycoons. I personally love this type of hero, as they are redeemed through love. But even tho this one is a ruthless kingdom-maker, he is apparently not smart enough to keep track of the heroine and loses her for 8 years. Really? He moved her into his flat and didn't get her cell phone number?? He didn't call America to check on her when she suddenly and uncharacteristically disappeared??Not sure what happened in the end with their wildly swinging relationship, because for the first time, I didn't finish a KA book.