The Book Gourmet

James Cannon's been searching for his lost dog for the past month. Fancy finding the pooch cozied up with a sexy woman in the middle of nowhere. A woman who desperately needs a guard dog, even though she won't admit as to why...


Really? Really?! This might get spoiler-y, but I don't care. I'm spitting mad. Because this could've been a good story...Until it wasn't.

Again, there was this disconnect between me, the story and the characters, and I have a feeling it's because the narrative style isn't my cuppa. Something is simply off. I cannot empathize or sympathize with the characters, I cannot connect to them, it's like there's a barrier preventing me from immersing into the story.

And again, there was also no connection between the characters themselves, except for the physical, that is. But, as in its predecessor, there was no emotional connection, just two strangers scratching an itch. Why was Shay drawn to him, and James to her? I didn't understand it, I didn't see it. There was attraction, yes, he was hot and she sexy (apparently), but physical attraction only takes you to a certain point. You have to have something in common to make it work; everything these two had in common was their love for Bogart, the dog. Call me weird, but I don't think that's enough.

The second problem was the heroine. She wasn't smart, quirky, funny, resilient...She simply was annoying. I didn't hate her, I didn't like her, she was just annoying. And that's the worst part, when you don't feel anything about a character beside the mild annoyance as if an insect is buzzing around your ears. That's what Shay was for me. An annoying bug. She was all over the place, had no idea what she wanted, fixated on the "huge" issue from her past that turned out to be just a ploy to create conflict...Bla bla bla.

And the third problem was the overblown story. We already had an obsessive, stalker-ish ex. That could've worked well. But no, we had to have a dog-napping ex of the hero, who had the MCs followed by a shady character that turned into a crazy, cat-under-the-car-throwing, would-be rapist of a stalker whose motive was never revealed, or maybe I just wasn't paying attention at that point toward the end of the book.

Did we really need all that? Because it didn't make the story better or more interesting, just the opposite. It took a mediocre story with bland characters even deeper into the dark hole.