Lynda Chance

Ok, this has the age gap thing I am no fan of, but that isn't reason for the low rating. I did enjoy the traumatized heroine aspect of the book, and all the angsty misunderstanding stuff, but Zach is just too much of an asshole. He sexually assaults her. He even acknowledges that what he is doing is without her consent and wrong and awful, but he does it anyways. Generally, I like a book where the hero has to grovel, but this was just too problematic for me. I worry about the messages women get about what love is! Not to mention what we teach men is acceptable behavior.… (more)

3-1/2 stars. A cute little romance. It was a bit different in that the heroine was a young virgin and it was important to her to stay that way. She believed that sex was only for marriage. And the hero was an ass but I liked him regardless. He was pretty bad about trying to get her in bed anyway. So normal realistic guy stuff. One of the parts I enjoyed the most is that she was fairly aware of how jerklike he was being and just went along with him as you do sometimes with men. Sort of he can think all he wants that he is winning this male/female thing but since I'm getting what I want I'll not call him on his bulls**t. He did have a crisis of conscience about how he had manipulated her and kept her from having any other options but to stay with him and eventually marry him. So I forgave him his asshatery.

All that being said, there wasn't a whole lot of conflict or tension involved here so if you're looking for that this might not be the book for you. It was however well written. It flowed nicely and was well paced. Good use of language and fine sense of place with just the right amount of description to paint a picture. Not an erotic story although there were some fairly hot love scenes after they get married. No glaring ebook formatting errors.

I'd be happy to try another book by this author.

Thanks Marisa for loaning it to me.… (more)