Sarah's Library

7/10 - I didn't enjoy this quite as much as most of my friends, including the one whose review encouraged me to read it.

This was indeed a short and sweet romance and the sex scenes were pretty hot and steamy. My problem was with the characterisation of the main characters. I found both characters' backgrounds unsatisfyingly shallow.

In the blurb, Lucie is described as being disorganised and bookish and really both of those traits are shown only in one scene each. When Reid first meets Lucie, after their years-long separation, he notices that she has a messy desk messy hair that won't stay where she puts it. Then, in one further scene we see Lucie trying to read a book, but failing due to being distracted by thoughts of her night with Reid. At no other time in the book is there evidence of her being either disorganised or bookish. If you're going to make those personality traits part of her description in the blurb, it needs to be shown through more than one little comment. Books need to be all over her apartment, mess and perpetual lateness need to be part of Lucie's daily life.

Also, the reason Lucie's so set on the perfectly compatible orthopaedic surgeon is because of a disastrous marriage to a man she had an instant sexual/emotional connection with. From this disastrous marriage that ended in divorce after she caught him in another woman's bed she comes to the conclusion that she can never have a relationship with a man that she has a sexual/emotional connection with because those kinds of relationships are too volatile. She needs someone steady and reliable who has similar interests. Once again we're told all of this, none of it happens during the story. I think the book, and Lucie's character, would've benefited from a prologue that showed the relationship between Lucie and this unnamed ex.

Why do we never see any evidence of Reid's MMA fighting? It's a huge part of his character and the main reason for him and Lucie to be in close contact, but the only reason we know that he's a fighter is that we are told that. He never actually fights at any time in the book, we don't even actually read anything about him training, just that he does.

As I said, the story was hot and sweet, but there wasn't much depth. I was a little disappointed and felt that Maxwell could have done more with the story. It was only 299 pages long with small pages and an above-average sized font, it's not like it's long enough for readers to get bored. Most of the three stars I've given this book are due to good sex scenes and the fact that it didn't take up much of my time. I will probably still read future books in the series.