BOOK REVIEW (30): Sense & Sensibility

BOOK REVIEW:

Sense and Sensibility

All right, I’ll preface this review by saying I had no plans to read Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. And to be fair to Ms. Austen, I didn’t plan to read any books at all. I was deep in the throes of starting my NoWriMo August project and after that first grueling week where things were new and I really dreaded opening the word doc I was glad to be able to take a break from my story world and jump into another’s.

So it was a blind choice from the book shelf. I just grabbed something from my TBR pile and it happened to be this book—yay!

From that enthusiastic exclamation you can probably tell which direction this review is heading…

I had no regrets reading Sense and Sensibility.

I watched the British miniseries 3 years ago and after reading the book I don’t feel like it ruined it. I definitely liked the book more than the show, but for those who don’t want to read the book then the show is another medium to be entertained by the dramatic plot.

Can you guess which is Elinor? Think stern, stiff, and no-nonsense.

Anyways I enjoyed my time with the two Dashwood sisters and their beaus. I figured out perhaps why people like reading Austen's stories. She's got a knack for capturing people's social quirks. The situations minus the social milieu could, IMO, fit quite easily in our modern North American context.

I had a huge crush on Colonel Brandon, but he was really a broody sop and his choice of love interest kinda killed that crush early. Mrs. Jennings was hilarious and she was really a good part of the reason I'd keep coming back. And I did cry once--so I wasn't resistant to the plot and conflict entirely. I won't say where or why, just know that I cried.

However I didn’t give it a full five rating because it didn’t exude the ‘wow’ factor from me. There were some things I didn’t like, and I warn for SPOILERS here:

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1)      Elinor Dashwood: one of the main characters in Sense and Sensibility was annoying to follow. The theme—or one thematic thread—in the novel is senses and sensibility and the difference between engaging these two approaches in life, but more particularly in the social world. Elinor uses her head, and her sister, Marianne, in contrast uses her heart. “Sense” v.s. “sensibility” and in the end sense seems to have won, but there’s a bit of leeway towards sensibility. It took a painfully long time for Elinor to kind of really want what she wanted, but it’s never really expressed in the pages. Essentially I don’t feel like she deserved her ending. She was spoon-fed really and though I’m not sure whether Austen herself might to comment on her character, I think Elinor is kinda 2d, flat and throughout the story to the end she doesn’t develop as a character.

2)    The whole Edward-Lucy engagement: stupid, stupid, stupid. I mean I wanted to chuck the book and walk away, but the whole story of these two was unravelled in the third last chapter and I kinda just wanted to finish the story. But it was just dumb. REALLY contrived resolution. And this point connects back to what I said about Elinor’s personality. How could she accept Edward’s excuse?!

3)     The romantic ending. Ugh, ahh—but I don’t know what I expected. Nothing else, yet it was awful to read. I cringed. Everything was in apple pie order. I can’t say much about this because the plot was building towards this resolution, and it would have been spectacularly weird if the author had just killed off all her characters or something.

SPOILER ALERT!

******

To be honest though, I would have loved if Marianne had died. How might have the story changed?

FUN FACT: Author Stephenie Meyer referenced Edward Ferrars as being one of the reasons supporting her choice to name Twilight’s vampire hero.

My verdict:

✮✮✮.5

(3.5 stars)

Passion + Determination (Big Dreams Blog Update #11)

Okay, so wrapping up August with the ‘Do You Have a Goal’ blog hop or the Big Dreams hoppity hop! Hosted by Misha Gericke and Beth Fred, the blog hop features 19 of us dreamers reaching for some pretty big, wacky dreams! Some of us have been at it for a year, and though we have 4 more years of goal-making--the blog hop is a 5-year venture--there have already been astounding accomplishments coming from other bloggers!

Of course it's never too late! You’re always free to join—the more the crazier, right? Check out details HERE.

My big crazy dream is to hit one million words of completed projects. I read somewhere that it takes one million bad words to get one good word out. Well closing up the 2/3^rd of the year and at 168K of that goal I’d say all those words weren’t ALL bad.

Even after completing my own version of NoWriMo this month after I decided to sit out on July’s Camp NaNo.

I finished that project, Bad-Blooded Billionaire a few days ago and I’m still coming down from the up-down emotional roller coaster. I also chose to document that journey through a blog series. You can find those posts here under the tab ‘Guess What?!’ above.

During the coming few months I’ll be starting my school and I’m going to be diving back into revising Bad-Blooded Billionaire. I don’t want to load myself with too much work, so I’ll be picking away at revisions/rewriting.

A couple weeks ago I celebrated my one-year blogiversary, and I kinda did a brief post where I looked back a bit at some of the goals I'd set and how close I've come to them a year later. But it doesn't even take a year to change. This past month showed me that passion + determination go a LONG way. I mean who would have thought I could write a novel in a month?
Just totally crazy--which works because that's what this blog hop is all about!

As for my reading goals for 2014, I set out to read AND review 30 books.

I’m happy to say I hit the reading portion of that goal last month, and I’m closing in on catching up to reviews. I have one more review (my 30^th!) that I’ll be putting up sometime this weekend, and another on the backburner.

I still have plans to read a bit, but I’ll be saving most of that for my school books. Not so much leisure reading will take place this fall.

But I am looking forward to September and another Update Day post and I’ll make sure I have something to write in this space.

Until then, enjoy the last bits of summer and let’s send it off well!

BOOK REVIEW (29): Falling for the Cowboy

BOOK REVIEW:

Falling for the Cowboy

I read this near the end of July and now I’m posting this at the end of August—haha! But I really loved this story, and it resonated with me so much that I couldn’t possibly forget WHY I liked it.

Falling for the Cowboy is my third Harlequin American Romance, and by far my favourite! Author Mary Leo takes the fish-out-of-water trope sets it in a small country town with Western charm and adds a dash of opposites attract—the product is amazingly well done.

The story narrates the chemistry between heroine Maggie Daniels, a city girl and Doc Blake, a small town dentist/cowboy. Unlike his brothers, Blake Granger, or “Doc Blake” organizes children teeth and doesn’t spend his time wrangling horses on his family ranch.

Maggie has had a troubled childhood and the city life and its driven ambition is all she’s known… then fate lands her in Blake’ town and she begins to wear her ‘country heart” on her sleeve. Briggs, Idaho grows on her right when a perfect job offer comes her way. The only catch: she has to move back to L.A.

There’s also a kid in the story. Blake has a five-year-old daughter who doesn’t play matchmaker as much as she plays an important role in her father’s decision-making. Particularly where Maggie and their sometimes steamy, but more sweet relationship

So what do you need to know? Well, there’s one sex scene. Not too explicit, but not too sweet either—more of a “best of both” or “can’t decide so a bit of both” type scenario.

Secondly the relationship moves pretty quickly. Blake does NOT pussyfoot around his feelings for Maggie. If anything she’s the one who pulls back well he charges towards her and searches to bring out her love and passion for all things country.

I also liked that the book is set up to give stories to the other brothers. Doc Blake/Blake has two brothers, Colt and umm, I think the other one was called Travis. Anyways, Colt got more page space than the other brother did who was single and super quiet! So, you’ll fall in love with Colt more quickly…which sets up for a series for these two other Grangers. And win! Series are always win!

Why did I love this story?

Maggie has to make a choice between country and city, love and work, family and singlehood…

And it’s so much deeper than that plain black and white choice. She finds herself in the town of Briggs—Blake just helped her, but she’s also had her best childhood memories in a small town. I think that’s why I kept coming back to this particular category romance series from Harlequin.

American Romance explores the family as much as it does a romance between a hero and heroine. IMO the title of this book could just as easily have been called Falling for Home. Or something like that because Blake is a package deal that includes his daughter and the town he won’t ever leave.

Of course Blake makes his sacrifice, too. He’s willing to let Maggie go and make her own choice. No pressure from him. And he’s as devoted a father as he is a lover.

So if you’re interested in the other books in the Fatherhood series—yes, for once I think I started this series early!

Book #2: Aiming forthe Cowboy (March 4^th, 2014)

Book #3: Christmaswith the Rancher (December 2^nd, 2014) *I don’t believe there is a kid in this last one!

My verdict:

✮✮✮✮✮

5 stars

Guess what? I'm actually writing! series (#5 - complete!)

Guess What?! (5):

And it’s a wrap.

One month and 4 previous posts later (which you can all now find HERE for your ease in searching) and I have another complete MS.

But you know these things never end, not if we don't want them too. Have you ever read a book and wanted to rewrite the ending, or you were rooting for the author to take it another way…*ahem*Pottershouldadied*ahem*…

I ended this yesterday night and almost immediately wanted to jump back in and edit, but I also knew I wasn’t ready so I’ve stepped away. AND I plan to stay away for the rest of the month. I’m thinking a week break is long enough before I decided to jump into first rounds of revisions.

            I did already mention that Bad-Blooded Billionaire became more of a 2^nd version and less a re-write. You’re all thinking, “doesn’t revising mean rewriting?” and it does, but what I mean is that if I went back in and changed the names of the H/h and some other characters transferred from the first version of this story then I would have nearly two different stories.

The plots are just that dissimilar.

At first this totally freaked me out, especially since I caught on to these big changes earlier. I ‘what if’d’ a whole new hook to the plot and then it took off from there and as you can see with this extra series post, the word count also clearly got WAY out of hand.

If I were contracted I might have deservedly wigged, but I’m not so I let the story go and the characters tell me their ending (with a little nudging from me through a bit of plotting).

And there’s all the good that came out of this. I had something to do for the last bit of summer hooray before school. I found out I’m a bonafide morning writer. I’m better off dragging myself out of bed to get something down rather than push it back to later hours—which btw will work with my coming fall schedule.

Also learned I don’t do word counts. Like set word counts. I’ve been talking about hitting this-that today and so on, but I really don’t do well with setting myself up for a certain amount of words. Instead I set myself up with a time schedule of 3-4 hours every morning where I would only write. No distractions, foreground or background—just me and my word document.

I also work way better if I write daily, no breaks. Even if I get only 100 words down for the day (which I did that very first day…184 to be exact) it helped me keep the momentum going.

I know some authors don’t work this way while their on a project. I’m not one of those writers. The way I see it I’ll write through daily until I’m done the project and then I’ll take my break.

Now what I didn’t do that I’m regretting is plotting/outlining before writing BBB 2.0. So when I jump into version 3 (or rewrites using what I’ve got from both MSs) I’ve decided to begin by writing a synopsis. A short one that captures what I’d like to do, and given I’m writing category romance I can outline the H/h’s goals and motivations to produce strong internal and external conflicts and dismantle any plot points that don’t work.

So 1) break, 2) synopsis, and 3) rewrite/revision.

Thanks for sticking around with this series. It was super fun capturing my thoughts throughout this process.

I know writers have heard this before, but I’ll say it again: writing is a lonely task. There’s a lot of thinking up here and all that time alone can work wonders on anxiety and nerves…in a bad way.

It helped talking to my sisters near the end of this project, but I also found it almost cathartic being able to sum up my problems. I will enter revisions with no assumptions of its being easy. Yet it feels good going in with a plan.

As for future series-related posts, I’m hoping to cook up something during the revision process. Still there’s time to see how my schedule looks like fall and whether school will eat me alive or not.

Until then, take care and check out the other ‘Guess What?!’ posts if you haven’t read them!

Guess what? I'm actually writing! series (#4 - 100% mark)

Guess What?! (4):

You read that right: 100% mark, bby.

Err...that's not quite right. And I do believe I can math well.

So 100% passed...but not done.

Yeah, unfortunately the image word count is set to 50K, so I'm stuck with Mr. Happy Hour Hot Potato there and the weird shaped red balloon back there.

Anyways, I don't know what to say. Oops!

I went over my word count goal, which I hear is a nightmare for contracted writers/authors. And to be honest even though I don't have this WIP contracted it still totally freaked me out!

I thought I had the plot under control, but it just become something else entirely.

Hmmm, now I wonder why that is?

Oh, that's right! Maybe it's cause I refused to plot/outline.

Yup. I'm starting to realize that maybe a little bit of plotting is kinda a must when you want to get a work into a publishable stage in order to approach agents and query.

On the bright side this isn't the last post for this series! On the not-so bright side I'm not done, but you all don't care about that. You want that snippet I promised. Since this isn't the last post, but I did promise I'll be posting it regardless cause you know I'm a great person like that. xD

*

**

***

**

*

She sucked in a breath. “I felt like an intruder. Especially when I thought about living here…”

Saimon drew his brows, his thumb stilling. His jaw slackened with relief, only to tighten in response to her fear. Her reaction had been perfectly normal. Hadn’t he felt uncomfortable thinking about the changes their marriage would bring?

“Next question,” he said, his voice gruff from the sorrow Saimon wasn’t willing to fully humor just yet. Not when Erika was already carrying enough of the burden for the two of them it seemed. “Why did you really accept the surrogacy?”

Erika’s mouth flopped open and an inarticulate sound popped out. Saimon smiled grimly, his eyes narrowing. “In a language we can both understand.”

“I wanted to help them!” She said, giving a bit of a tug on her hand.

“Why?”

“Do I really need a reason to want to help? Saimon, they couldn’t have a family themselves. I wanted to help them complete their love.”

“But surrogacy is a bigger than normal way to help? Why not help point out the phone directory for a surrogacy source?”

She gave him a shrewd look. “You seemed like the expert. Can surrogacy clinics be found in the abundance in a directory of all places?”

“If you look in the right places, yes. It’s not illegal, so I don’t imagine why a doctor wouldn’t be able to advertise the service. You’ve distracted me enough though, and I’m beginning to suspect you’re lying.”

Erika looked down. His hand was ready to stop that. Holding her chin, Saimon pressed his thumb below her quivering bottom lip. The sensations did something else to his erection. Taking a deep breath through his nostrils, he expelled the air along with her name. “Erika, if not for money then why give so much?”

“I wanted to help.” She repeated. As stubborn as she was, her heart was racing and his thumb tapped out the quickening lub-dub.

“You’re lying.”

“Next question.” Erika said, forcing a smile from him. Sardonic though it was, Saimon accepted her challenging determination and acquiesced by asking the next question, another one tickling his mind.

“How did Yukiko and Ranmaru plan to raise their child?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t really talk about it.”

“Well we know they were going to adopt the child and cover the surrogacy this way, so we can surmise your name as the mother would have been A) either obliterated from the records, taking the child as a foundling, or B) some sort of forgery of your name would shield your identity and protect the child’s reputation. Which could it be?”

(end.)

Guess what? I'm actually writing! series (#3 - 75% mark)

Guess What?! (3):

Can't believe I've written for 18 days straight...actually I can. It just doesn't feel like summer break is over. I'm in denial, you see, with school starting in 2ish weeks. Ugh.

But we are closing in at the end of this series--err, super mini series. It wasn't long for a reason. I was testing the waters to see if I could do this series thing.
I am enjoying the updates myself, so it's likely I'll be continuing to do this in the future. For now, this is the penultimate post for my current WIP, or round 2 of Bad-Blooded Billionaire (or w/e I'm calling it these days...)

I'm also nearing the end of the WIP.
Though what the end is really I'll never know... I haven't written a post on that yet.

How do you know when the end is really 'The End'?
Usually when the main conflict finds its resolution, but there are books with more clearer endings--those everything wrapped up in a neat bow--and then the more open-ended conclusions.

For instance I think that Franz Kafka's Amerika ends off all right...but wait! We know that the manuscript is actually unfinished--Kafka died before he could finish it.

What gives right?

I guess it's all about interpretation. I am working on a romance, however, and I like my HEAs. The main internal conflict needs its resolution and then I can consider it done...for now. Last post I mentioned I already know I'll be tackling this story again. There's some major plot points that need to be re-analyzed, characters that need to be questioned...

So next post will be the final post of the series. I'll hopefully be done the MS by then and can summarize my experience.

I might even share a teaser from Bad-Blooded Billionaire...who knows?

One Year Later...

I can't believe it.

A year ago this day I started this blog--don't believe me scroll back to my 2013 posts.

And it's CRAZY right?

A year ago I hadn't finished a novel, ever! Always wanted to, but never have. I mean unless you tally the word count of all my abandoned projects...

This June I finally accomplished that, and I'm currently through a second draft (but really another version) of that first novel. Nuts. Just absolutely certifiably cray-cray.

Some things have stayed the same of course. I still want to build a career from my writing, and that is an umbrella of on-going goals. I mean I really started the blog for that reason. I always hear editors and writers advise treating this like a job from the get-go even before you get a agent and/or contract.

 I want to be able to hold myself accountable. Kinda like graduating from plants to pets to children. I want to nurture my career and not just superglue my palms together and waste my days just praying. Doesn't God help those who help themselves?

Some things have changed, too.

I've learned to ask. Invite my family into my writing world and I pinch myself at my incredible luck in a group of people who are so supportive. My sisters will clear their desks when I ask for a place to sit, or they'll inquire about my writing,

I learned to use Twitter without looking like an idiot. And I'm participating more in the writing world. I've read more--I love to read, but i always put it on the back burner when school came around. (And you can imagine what a little time management and an agenda can do!)

Wrapping this post up because it isn't an update, I only hope that next year when my 2-year blogiversary rolls around I'll be able to actually have something to talk about like I did here!

Guess what? I'm actually writing! series (#2 - 50% mark)

Guess What?! (2):

50% here I am!

But man, oh man I really do suck with this commitment thing.

As you can see from the word count meter on the right of the screen, I hit 50% with my WIP 10K ago and I’ve been since remiss with this post.

My excuse is I’ve been dealing with a wonky schedule for the last 4-5 days. Family has been swinging through the house and as you all know by this series’ previous post I am desk less. And that could have worked out two ways: 1) I could have been a lazy bum and took some “time off” writing. Ha!

Or 2) I write something. Anything! 100 words as magic a number as 1000!

I went with option #2—though I deliberated on option #1 every time I sat down to actually do the writing. It’s easier to start off the day saying you’re going to write, but when writing time comes—oh boy. -shakes head-

A lot of mental bribery ensues, maybe material bribery ("100 words more and you can go play catch up with Big Brother").

I had to make sacrifices, too. So usually I borrow my sister’s desk during the morning and afternoon while she’s off at work, but during the weekends she’s using it and I retain my desk less status.

During these times I drag myself to my bed and write with the laptop on my legs or on the bed, you name the odd position.

Why is this a sacrifice? I hate to write on my bed! I don’t know how some writers do it—I just. I just CAN’T. Somebody call the posture police!

As for the writing itself, it’s going as swell as a pantsing project can go.

This WIP is not really so much a second draft of my first attempt at Bad-Blooded Billionaire. I thought it would be, but now that I’m well past the halfway mark (and that means a Guess What?! post 3 is in the works!) I can’t ignore the fact that this reads more like another story with only a few similar points (i.e. character names, some occupations stay the same)

I also can see more revisions in the near future for BBB.

I think the problem is I haven’t outlined enough. I mean I used to love outlining, and now I’m too scared to touch it for fear I’ll kill the drive to write the story.

I had no synopsis, no chapter outline, no frikkin’ blurb for this story—I just started writing on the start of this month and let my fingers do their thing.

Well, that isn’t going to happen next time. And since I don’t see myself stopping at this point until I hit ‘The End’, I decided to track these problems and will be transferring the points I’ve made from my noggin to a notebook.

But more on that laters, baby. (And no, my billionaire hero isn’t teaching the heroine any Japanese bondage art. ;D)

Guess what? I'm actually writing! series (#1 - 25% mark)

Guess What?! (1):

So I hit the 25% mark on my WIP. Yay!
6 days ago I would laugh at you if you came up and told me I'd be sitting here writing this post.

Hahaha.

And now that that's out of my system, I can celebrate...and as promised update on the process. I decided I'll do a weekly post, but there might be some hits and misses there on posting time.

Instead I'll organize the posts per a percentage system, at the very least. When I hit milestones like now at the 1/4 completion mark of the targeted word count, I'll post a recap of my writing days.

A little back story with this WIP. I actually started it back in July 24th after I decided there was a limit to my reading back-to-back. (I don't know how professional book reviewers do this!) I was running from my writing and that morning I sat in front of my computer for other reasons than mindless net surfing.

I wrote. And I wrote. I didn't want to write, but I wrote.
Day 2 came around on July 25th and I wrote again.

I was ~2000 words into the first attempt when I scrapped it all and picked up a couple of Harlequin Romances on my TBR shelf (check book reviews #28 and #29). And rather than writing that morning, I read. And I read.

It wasn't that I forgot to write, I just didn't want to write.
So I ran back to reading. The oh-so safe activity of reading. -strokes books and dies of paper cut bleeding-

In my defense at the time I was also studying for two finals so I wasn't exactly writing focused. Reading was easier and I figured that I needed some time to plot my hero and heroine's goals/motivations and the story's main conflict.

Done, and done. August 1st rolls around too quickly, but happily because...I AM FREE FROM SUMMER SCHOOL!

August 1st to 6th: I write every day at all odd hours as I experiment to find my comfort zone, because writing environment is important and I am desk less.

Or...

You choose how you imagine my being desk less.

But even in my desklessness--that is so not a word--I managed to pull off writing something. That something turned out to be a lot, but hey! That's still pretty cool and motivational, right? Right?

Of course I wasn't thinking motivational at all when I was in the process of writing (active) as opposed to the end of the day when I have written (passive). Take for example on the second morning I was borrowing my sister's desk while she was out and about and I looked over at her scanty bookshelf (ahaha, hopefully she'll never read this) where an old copy of Twilight and books 4-7 of HP sit alongside a bunch of textbooks from her school days (oh. and now I make her sound super-old. I'm dead). And then it hit me.

None of those authors quit. And if they had my sister wouldn't have their books sitting on their shelf.

It was the kick in the pants I needed that morning. Why? Because I want to personally make writing a career. And if I want it as a career I gotta to treat it like a job from the ground running. So when that day comes and I get a contract for my debut, I'll be as prepared at least in my fortitude.

The rest of publishing will still swamp me, but at least I'll know that I have to keep writing and that, more importantly, I can.

...

Oh and that copy of Twilight is mine, okay! There. I said it.

BOOK REVIEW (28): Storybook Dad

BOOK REVIEW:

Storybook Dad

So this past summer I’ve taken a family psych course and we briefly touched on single fatherhood among other modern family-related issues. I like to think single fatherhood always existed since we could…you know, procreate, but it’s transformed into a more acknowledged scenario in North America particularly.

Why am I blabbing about single fathers?

Well I’ve already read one book with a single father lead and I was able to dig around my monstrous TBR book shelf to find another romance touching on the subject of male, single parenthood and the difficulties associated with parenting in general (raising kids are hard, go figure).

That find was Laura Bradford’s Storybook Dad, and like the title suggests fairy tales and unfulfilled childhood dreams are a motif in the story.

Our lead this time around is more average. An accountant single dad raising his son, and of course because I assume accounting is boring (sorry mum and dad!) hero Mark Reynolds needs some action in his life. And what better way than to join heroine Emily’s entrepreneurial classes offering a range of daredevil hobbies, like rapids rafting, survival camping and rock climbing?

On a more serious note Mark is there for other personal reasoning. His wife died and he’s trying to regain something of equilibrium, and he joins Emily’s class because he wants to try something new.

In a similar conflict Emily started her company offering these classes because she wanted to prove something to herself. AND this isn’t a spoiler she’s been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. That was a tough one to swallow for me as a reader. I’ve never read a book where the heroine was sick. I think there might have been one book where the heroine was on remission from cancer, but that was it.

I actually set the book aside for a couple hours before I convinced myself that it was a romance and something GOOD had to happen—I mean it’s Harlequin—and I wasn’t even setting myself up for a HEA, just cautious of making myself cry and wondering how I would cheer myself up if I did.

I didn’t cry. Okay, maybe once if you count getting misty-eyed. There is one scene that will make you definitely sniffle at the least, or smile, or react in some normal human way.

In her opening letter to readers the author discusses her own journey and the spark of inspiration for the cast and conflicts for the book after she was diagnosed with MS.

Of course there is a child involved, and like the only other romance with a child character, Mark’s preschool-aged son Seth Reynolds makes a splash and rocks the starting waves of a companionate-type love between the couple on top of the separate sexual attraction.

There is a sex scene that is moderately explicit, as in there are some details mentioned. But it’s more tender need than flip-your-hair, brandish-your-feather dusters steamy bedroom peeping.

I had no regrets reading the book. The dialogue surrounding the MS, and there was a lot because it was the main source of conflict, had me questioning my level of empathy. I think I came the closest to evoking empathy in the moments Emily openly discussed her MS.

Does that make me sound like a heartless monster?

I mean I got a bunch of sympathy, but the sympathy gave way and instead I just kind of started stepping into Emily’s shoes, rather than reading the book like an audience.

All right enough of my defending myself, and I just might be a heartless monster.

Anyways my rating is based on a couple of misses for me.

1)      No small-town community feeling. The other Harlequin American Romance had a vibe of more community than this book. There weren’t a lot of secondary characters introduced and none I felt a strong attachment and/or curiosity towards… Yeah. It’s more a personal flavouring, but I would have liked to see how the community as a whole reacted to Emily’s MS. Though it was made clear that Emily flied solo and only the handful of her close friends and family members knew of her condition. She also isn’t living near family, so all of that kinda made the “community feel” factor nearly impossible.

2)    Disconnect with hero’s logic. I felt that Mark was all over the place in his reasoning for holding up his conflict to keep Emily away. I mean I get that he doesn’t want to hurt his son and all, and you have to read the book to find out why he believes he wants to hurt his son, but come on! Emily’s rational spoke more volumes. I think he handled a lot of things very stupidly.

3)     Ending felt clichéd and rushed. My gawd that ending was pretty bland. Like I was reading a fairy tale, like those children’s book fairy tales sans the weird pedo and horror elements. I don’t know what I expected, but it was cheese. Another topic is brought up at the end of the novel, too. The decision of child-bearing and disease (in this case of the neurological variety), and Emily and Mark make a decision.

Now go read the book and find out what that decision is.

My verdict:

✮✮✮.5

(3.5 stars)