Lexie Davis

Still in Love With You by Lexie Davis
Source: Netgalley
My Rating: 2/5 stars
My Review:

When you read a lot of books, 100+ each year, it takes a special book to stand out in the crowd, to be remembered. Unfortunately, Lexie Davis’s Still in Love With You isn’t one of those special standouts.

Aubree Manning has spent the past decade building a life for herself in Dallas. She’s successful and confident and so not looking forward to being back in her super-small hometown, but her father has show more called her home and there’s nothing she wouldn’t do for her father. Coming home means not only facing the town gossips, but facing the man she left behind a decade ago. The one man in the entire world who can shake Aubree’s confidence to her very core.

The second she sets foot in town, Parker Montgomery has Aubree arrested for driving his car into the lake a full decade ago. He’s clearly still a bit angry over their parting and wants everyone to know he doesn’t give a damn about Aubree. Problem is, everyone, including his family, her family, the town gossips, and his girlfriend knows he still gives a damn. With only ten days to two weeks tops to convince Aubree to remain with him and abandon her life in Dallas, Parker has his work cut out for him. As she’s always been, Aubree is stubborn and headstrong and convincing her to give up her posh life for small town living isn’t going to be easy.

Except for her current situation, Aubree has never known real strife in her life. She’s a hard worker and has earned everything she has, but she is also quite naïve. Being arrested by her ex-boyfriend is just funny and egging on the town gossips about her return to town is just plain fun. Being home and bailing her family out of financial ruin isn’t her idea of a good time so to work off the frustration, she starts showing up at Parker’s fixer-upper and putting her talents and bank account to good use. She can’t deny being near Parker again feels good, but his past is far darker than hers and helping him overcome that past isn’t going to be easy. She’s willing to help and she wants an HEA with Parker, but there’s going to have to be some compromising on both sides.

The Bottom Line: From start to finish, this story is just awkward. The most awkward bits include:
1) The excuse for getting Aubree home is certainly sweet, but terribly weak and somewhat unreasonable. Aubree has a seemingly good and strong relationship with her family so not coming home for a decade really doesn’t make sense especially given the fact she lives within four hours of her hometown.

2) While I am generally a fan of history and backstory and seeing those things play out in the present, it simply doesn’t work here. There isn’t a cohesion between the past and present in this read which makes it awkward, at best.

3) Each scene with Parker’s girlfriend is completely wasted in this read, extraneous detail that adds nothing to the overall plot. The worst of the scenes is the outburst in the hardware store. Really???

4) Finally, there’s the way everyone treats Parker. Rather than helping him, everyone treats him as if he’s broken and about to fall to pieces at any moment. Even his own father keeps big secrets from him rather than treating him like the adult he is.

While I wouldn’t call Still in Love With You a bad read, I also wouldn’t call it a good read either. Aubree and Parker are both OK characters with nothing remarkable about either to make them stand out among the romance genre crowd. The same can be said for the read overall, it’s OK, but not a book that is going to stand out among the considerable offerings in this genre. show less

3.5 stars.

This was a fun, easy read. The MC's are very likeable and sexy to boot. I did have the feeling the story was slightly rushed. I would have liked it to be longer, with a little more detail to certain facts. Things were skipped and then referred to later which made me wonder at times exactly what was going on. Because of this I'm rounding it down instead of up.

While I had high expectations for this story, what with a serum that genetically changes werewolves into humans, I am afraid that I found the actual execution of this idea - lacking. The story was straightforward enough, but the lack of understandable character motivation and depth, some strange logic (like everything was happening in only one city with the evil mayor in charge of soldiers doing his bidding), and a simplistic background story made it impossible for me to enjoy this show more book.


NOTE: This book was provided by Siren Publishing for the purpose of a review. show less

The reader is plunged in the middle of a strange relationship between Brock and Dakota. Brock is a vampire slayer, but he has a secret, he is an half blood vampire; Dakota is a full bloodied vampire that after spending a one night stand with Brock, found out the truth the morning after, when is attempt to kill the man went wrong. After that night, Brock and Dakota have an agreement: they make favors to each other in exchange of sex... it's a strange relationship, as I said, I think that they show more are at the point that they find fake reasons to go to the other and ask for sex as payment.

But this time no, Brock is really in trouble, he received the order as vampire slayer to kill his own mother. To not bring on the deed, he has to pay off her debts, and Dakota offers the money, but not freely. Dakota is tired of their on / off relationship, he wants Brock all for his own, he wants a life together. It's strange that the one who should be the cool bloodied killer, the vampire, is the one who wants romance and sweet words. But even if Brock fakes reticence, he is till too much ready to accept the last barter.

The relationship between Dakota and Brock is easy, probably due to their past together. The sex is hot but "simple", it's already something steady between them, it doesn't need more; what it's still to be built is the intimacy, the aftermath to the main event. And so the plot is focused more on this.

Forever Yours is only a short story, but it has some interesting turn of events, a thing that I find always a plus. Nor Dakota or Brock are stereotype, the author manages to reverse the situation, making Dakota, the vampire, the hero in search of love and Brock, the human, the disenchanted hero who will find his match.

http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/724522.html show less