Sometimes when the story is all over the place, I’m able to find solace in the writing, but that was not the case in this book. The nail in the coffin with this one was the author’s writing style. « Hide Spoiler What? The absurdity was off-the-charts. Madoc and Fallon get married after sexing it out most of the book. That ending? Really? What in the world? View Spoiler » Madoc’s best friend films an incriminating sex tape with Fallon’s mom to force her to sign the divorce papers so that she doesn’t get the house in the divorce.

The insanity only intensified leading into story’s conclusion. I want to feel their chemistry and the connection between them and felt nothing for the couple here. In addition, we were told so much of how they felt for each other instead of being shown (I think this was due to way the story was structured with so much of the past being hidden). Sometimes, a little back and forth is necessary for the characters and the story, but in this book it felt forced and out of place. If I were to draw their relationship in visual form it would be all over the place: up and down and up and down. I never really got to a point where I even liked them together or really cared for them at all. The pacing of the relationship between Madoc and Fallon prevented me from believing their love story and falling for them as a couple. This type of story structure takes skill and finesse that this author does not possess. The author wanted to slowly reveal to the reader what happened between them two years prior in small little chunks.

The reader is thrown into Fallon and Madoc’s present circumstances, knowing very little of their past, which is obviously intentional. The way the story was structured made it really difficult for me to get into the romance aspect of the book. « Hide Spoiler Between the stepbrother/stepsister romance, overly vindictive mother, the bouncing boobs, and the mobster father, I just didn’t like this book. View Spoiler » Secret baby, caricature-like villainesque mother, mom comes on to hero, hero’s father cheating on his estranged wife with son’s best friend’s mother, and everyone has tattoos (but it’s cool because they hold deep meaning). This book was fraught with too much of everything. If the rest of her books are anything like this, then she’s not the author for me. This is the first book by Penelope Douglas that I’ve read. I wanted a good hate-to-love story, but I didn’t get it. Thank you for supporting my blog! Book Review: I appreciate my readers and make it my goal to be upfront and honest.

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Madoc and fallon