Review: These characters have no depth
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 10 8, 2012
There is a very fine line when choosing to write a short story and being able to have not only a plot, but a good portrayal of the characters and having the reader become invested in them.  It's not easy being able to accomplish than when you only have a few chapters in which to make it happen.  I've read many short stories where authors have been able to manage this and this, unfortunately, was not one of them.**SPOILERS TO FOLLOW**Bristol is selling her childhood home after her mother has passed away.  Shane, a billionaire who knew Bristol during her childhood and has not seen her in ten years (she is now 21) was first introduced as a "friend" of her mother's, and he was known to Bristol as "Uncle Shane" while she grew up.  We have no idea how old Shane is or how old Bristol's mother was, because the story never reveals that, but we are expected to believe he is probably around the age of Bristol's mother, which was probably late 40's to early 50's.  Why do we even have to guess about this when it would have been so simple to include it as part of the charcter descriptions.There is an instant attraction between the two when Shane shows up out of the blue and they both recognize one another.  Bristol admits she always had a crush on Shane when she was a child.  In fact, when she first recognizes him she refers to him as "Uncle Shane."Uncle Shane as it turns out is into BDSM and immediately invites Bristol to his apartment to show her his "dungeon" to which she realizes she is frightened over and chooses to leave.  But of course Shane is able to convince her to stay and they have their one and only sexual encounter.  An encounter that consists of nothing more than Bristol being handcuffed to a table while Shane stands in front of her, has a brief sexual encounter, unlocks her and it's over.  I've read better and longer sexual encounters in books that were not even tagged as erotic or in the BDSM genre, so I'm not sure where the erotic comes into play in this book.We then find out, though not said directly, but enough inuendo was given by Shane, that apparently Bristol's mother was not just a "friend" to Shane, but obviously was his partner at some point.  If the fact that he is much older than Bristol, that she grew up referring to him as her Uncle, and still does at their first meeting isn't enough to make you say "gross", then the mere fact that he pretty much just told you he had your mother handcuffed as well should have been the total turn-off for her daughter.After their one brief encounter Bristol doesn't see Shane or contact him for a month.  They run into each other a month later in the grocery store and after a brief hello and then goodbye, Shane follows Bristol out to the parking lot, pins her up against her car and nails her quick and fast.  (Whoops, sorry my mistake...there actually was another sexual encounter between the two in this book, but it was, again, so brief, I completely forgot about it until I got to this point in my review.)  Immediately the reader should assume there relationship, if there every really was one, is now on again.  The book ends with Bristol leaving her car there in the parking lot to drive back to Shane's apartment to have a little more of the brief encounter she just got in the parking lot.  But, amazingly, prior to heading home with him, Bristol already knows the rules of BDSM and how to talk to her master.  Something he never even told or taught her about the first time they were briefly together.  Should the reader assume she looked up this information on her own?  Who knows, because again, we are told nothing.That's how the book ends, with what is obviously meant to be a cliffhanger of sorts to make you want to buy book two and see where these characters end.  Personally, I don't have any interest in the second book since after the first one I have no idea who these characters even are.  We were never even given enough information to become the least bit invested in them.  While a quick moving plot is a good thing, in this case it moved so fast I have to wonder where the plot was.As a last note, the cover itself was another dislike of mine.  It's getting tiresome seeing the constant reference/copying of Twilight with the apple being held in the hands.  I'm sure there were many more ideas that could have been used other than the overused apple/temptation/Twilight copying that we are seeing used so often now.Sorry, I really do hate giving negative reviews and VERY rarely will I ever give a one star review.  I always try to find something positive in the book an author has given us to fall into, but in this case I think one star was generous.