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3.87 AVERAGE
3.87 AVERAGE
The book was great overall. I love that the heroine was doing something for herself. Loved the plot and how everything fell into place. I felt like the resolution came together little too quickly. They had all these issues and then bam it’s all been resolved.
This book pissed me off so much. Little things from the beginning were irking me, mainly that the Austrailian author writing dialogue for American characters that have WAY too many British/Aussie speak. This has bothered me a bit in her previous books, too. It's fine for the MMC since he's an Aussie, but not for the FMC. A key plot point involves the FMC plugging her phone in to charge, but not flipping the switch on the outlet, therefore her phone is dead.....she lives in California where we don't even have outlets like that. Things that should have been major plot points were ignored: photographs at the SF gala and the broken hand...for a SURGEON!
There was so much shaming in this book. The FMC takes a part-time job as a bartender at a high-end club, and a lot of her inner monologue is her shaming and looking down on her co-workers that choose to provide lap dances and more. The MMC shames the shit out of the FMC for working there when he is a paying member!
I should have stopped reading this so much sooner, but I wanted to see how the author twisted things to have the FMC take him back. I couldn't stomach it and DNFd around 80%
I doubt I will ever read another book by TL Swan.
There was so much shaming in this book. The FMC takes a part-time job as a bartender at a high-end club, and a lot of her inner monologue is her shaming and looking down on her co-workers that choose to provide lap dances and more. The MMC shames the shit out of the FMC for working there when he is a paying member!
I should have stopped reading this so much sooner, but I wanted to see how the author twisted things to have the FMC take him back. I couldn't stomach it and DNFd around 80%
I doubt I will ever read another book by TL Swan.
Stripper single mom? MMC who’s not the baby daddy? Author has aversion to contractions? Overly long and not great.
emotional
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This books is so terrible...I loved it. The writing wasn't great and it was littered with errors, but I read it in like 3 sittings.
This rating deserves a bit of an explanation (and also because its how I rate most of my books)
5 Stars is the ultimate escape and enjoyment of a story --and my romance genre binge this year is all about those two main feelings. If I can't stop reading (or listening via audiobook) to a story it almost always is an easy 5. :) It certainly doesn't mean that there can't be problematic aspects -- but the ultimate question is how much they bother my enjoyment. In this case I would still give a 4.5 or 5 to the overall story. I can see WHY it's popular.... but I can also see why many people feel the way they do about it.
A few points that are worth mentioning that may be deal breakers for other readers:
-The female main character should be American but uses a ton of British/Australian English. As a trained TEFL teacher, I am really in tune to the difference in BE and AE and yikes! All I did was correct her in my head throughout the story :-P This was probably the main thing that pulled my overall enjoyment down if there was something and it honestly is just something I feel a good editor should catch.
-In the Audiobook, the German pronunciation especially could have used some significant coaching. It was HORRIBLE. I can't speak to the French too much but it sounded quite a bit better to me. In the age of voice coaches and accent coaches, I don't see why it can't be worked on when the voice actors are CLEARLY amazing at handling accents. It wouldn't have horrible to work on either because we're only talking about a few sentences... but this probably only bothers people like me who happen to be fluent in German ;)
-As others have mentioned, MFC really capitulates so much in this book -- to some degree it occasionally feels a bit phony or spineless with what she wants/how she talks. With some of the things that went down in this book, a 'strong' woman might have handled it quite differently. To put it in different words: It felt a bit convenient to moving the plot along which happened, quite generally speaking, in a very short amount of time.
-Because of this quick capitulation and domineering nature of the MMC, consent felt borderline shaky a bit on some of the points. Not just sexual consent, but also what was in her power to do as a mother and as a parent. To some degree the author did a good job of pointing out why it was BS, but it was a bit shaky for me. Could be triggering to some. Overall, though, with consent issues being pretty much the ONLY thing that turns me off in a story, I still was okay with it.
Those points aside, -- quite the escape. Enjoy!
5 Stars is the ultimate escape and enjoyment of a story --and my romance genre binge this year is all about those two main feelings. If I can't stop reading (or listening via audiobook) to a story it almost always is an easy 5. :) It certainly doesn't mean that there can't be problematic aspects -- but the ultimate question is how much they bother my enjoyment. In this case I would still give a 4.5 or 5 to the overall story. I can see WHY it's popular.... but I can also see why many people feel the way they do about it.
A few points that are worth mentioning that may be deal breakers for other readers:
-The female main character should be American but uses a ton of British/Australian English. As a trained TEFL teacher, I am really in tune to the difference in BE and AE and yikes! All I did was correct her in my head throughout the story :-P This was probably the main thing that pulled my overall enjoyment down if there was something and it honestly is just something I feel a good editor should catch.
-In the Audiobook, the German pronunciation especially could have used some significant coaching. It was HORRIBLE. I can't speak to the French too much but it sounded quite a bit better to me. In the age of voice coaches and accent coaches, I don't see why it can't be worked on when the voice actors are CLEARLY amazing at handling accents. It wouldn't have horrible to work on either because we're only talking about a few sentences... but this probably only bothers people like me who happen to be fluent in German ;)
-As others have mentioned, MFC really capitulates so much in this book -- to some degree it occasionally feels a bit phony or spineless with what she wants/how she talks. With some of the things that went down in this book, a 'strong' woman might have handled it quite differently. To put it in different words: It felt a bit convenient to moving the plot along which happened, quite generally speaking, in a very short amount of time.
-Because of this quick capitulation and domineering nature of the MMC, consent felt borderline shaky a bit on some of the points. Not just sexual consent, but also what was in her power to do as a mother and as a parent. To some degree the author did a good job of pointing out why it was BS, but it was a bit shaky for me. Could be triggering to some. Overall, though, with consent issues being pretty much the ONLY thing that turns me off in a story, I still was okay with it.
Those points aside, -- quite the escape. Enjoy!
This one is…not my favorite. The spice is on point, but I feel like parts of the plot went unanswered or just dropped off altogether.
I liked Cameron in the first half, but when he started threatening Ashley with Owen, having zero parenting experience, it made my stomach churn.
Cameron ENRAGED me. Pull her in line? I think the fuck not! And all of a sudden it’s not ok that she works at the club? This woman has raised your son on her own for 5 years and you want to disparage her and degrade her? GTFO. I don’t know how you come back from this and I just knew he was gonna pull some kind of custody bullshit.
He somehow manages to get a bit more tolerable later in the book. A bit.
I do like Ashley though, for the most part. I do think she gives in to Cameron too much, but she tends to stand her ground.
I picked this up not realizing there were other Stanton books, so I missed a few references about the Stanton’s past (ie like why paternity is a trigger or why Joshua has intense security).
I also thought threads kinda dropped off - Andrew’s mother, Cameron’s mother, Ashley’s internship, Jenna, etc. I don’t know, I think I needed a bit more resolution to big parts of the early plot.
I’ve really liked the TL Swan books I’ve read in the past, but this one just missed the mark for me.
I liked Cameron in the first half, but when he started threatening Ashley with Owen, having zero parenting experience, it made my stomach churn.
Cameron ENRAGED me. Pull her in line? I think the fuck not! And all of a sudden it’s not ok that she works at the club? This woman has raised your son on her own for 5 years and you want to disparage her and degrade her? GTFO. I don’t know how you come back from this and I just knew he was gonna pull some kind of custody bullshit.
He somehow manages to get a bit more tolerable later in the book. A bit.
I do like Ashley though, for the most part. I do think she gives in to Cameron too much, but she tends to stand her ground.
I picked this up not realizing there were other Stanton books, so I missed a few references about the Stanton’s past (ie like why paternity is a trigger or why Joshua has intense security).
I also thought threads kinda dropped off - Andrew’s mother, Cameron’s mother, Ashley’s internship, Jenna, etc. I don’t know, I think I needed a bit more resolution to big parts of the early plot.
I’ve really liked the TL Swan books I’ve read in the past, but this one just missed the mark for me.
I really wanted to like this book. I loved the premise but Cameron was way too much of a jerk and not in your typical alpha male romance Hero. He went beyond that I didn't enjoy how he treated Ashley and Owen.