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alyssaereads's review
adventurous
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
romancelibrary's review
1.0
I received this ARC from NetGalley and voluntarily chose to write a review.
1.5 stars
The blurb would have you believe that this is a marriage of convenience whereby two childhood friends enter matrimony for financial purposes. The heroine has been in love with the hero her entire life and the latter only starts seeing her as a woman after their marriage. Forget everything you know about the marriage of convenience trope because pretty much nothing happens except for crazy villains bringing their evil plan to fruition at a French castle.
The writing is fine, but choppy. First of all, the story begins in such a confusing manner that I felt like Alice trying to make her way through wonderland. I had to reread several paragraphs to truly understand why the hero and heroine were acting that way. I almost got vertigo. Moreover, it is hard to follow both the narration and the conversation. Topics are switched abruptly or the characters say something random that does not connect to the subject of the conversation. Finally, I was not a fan of the way the flashbacks were inserted in the story. The flashbacks were written in detail and it was narrated in italicized font. I think the flashbacks would have been better used had they been included in separate chapters, rather than being included right when a character is ruminating on the past.
The characters and the plot were not well-written. Both hero and heroine were unlikable. We are told that Lucas and Carolyn are childhood friends, which is something that I can believe given the number of flashbacks there are. But Lucas always refers to Carolyn as his "best friend" and that I find extremely hard to believe. Lucas and Carolyn barely know each other as adults. They barely talk to each other about anything of substance. As a matter of fact, there is zero communication between them. They simply make assumptions about each other or jump to hasty conclusions without even investigating. For example, Carolyn immediately assumes that Lucas has a mistress when she finds out he bought a house. And when she mentions this to him, he does not even try correct her assumptions. Not only does Lucas not tell her about his project, he doesn't say anything to her about her inheritance. Even though their marriage was a business transaction, they didn't act like a team at all. Finally, there was no build up leading to the intimate scenes, except for the scene after Carolyn's race and the only love scene in the last chapter.
Carolyn acted out of character many times, throwing caution to the wind, even though the main reason she entered this marriage of convenience was to help her sisters. She was also dumb: who the hell immediately accepts a random family member without even questioning him?? Why didn't her aunt seek her and her sisters in England?? She asked no questions regarding this claim and just went along with it. This made no sense at all. Furthermore, Carolyn was always so unsure of herself. She kept changing her mind about Lucas and their wedding constantly and her reasoning made zero sense. Her self-esteem was so low that she kept refusing to admit he was jealous when she was around other men. She also took every little thing he said or did (or stopped doing) out of context. The lack of communication did not help matters either. When Lucas flat out told her she was beautiful, she thought it was only because he said it in the heat of passion. Then 2 seconds later, she thought to herself that he told her she was gorgeous and that must be true because he never lies. MAKE UP YOUR MIND!!! Carolyn NEVER stood up for herself. Don't even get me started on how she broke her promise by telling Cedric about her business arrangement with Lucas. What. the. Fuck? And the author did not even describe how that happened, which irritated me even more. And she wanted to give Cedric and Francois the benefit of the doubt even after being kidnapped by them. Girl, bye. Carolyn was a passive character who failed to make up her mind even in the end.
Lucas was a bearable character, but he was also stupid at times and very prideful. I can't believe he even thought for a minute that Carolyn was in love with that asshole Francois, even after the kidnapping business. Lucas was also kind of an asshole, but at least he was not a passive character like Carolyn and took action (even if his friend had to push him to chase Carolyn). At least he came to his senses after the whole ordeal, unlike Carolyn.
Moving on to the plot. The author had two wonderful tropes to play around with: marriage of convenience and childhood friends-to-lovers tropes. The latter was done well, despite the fact that I did not like the method of flashbacks the author used. The first one was poorly executed. There were so many opportunities for character and relationship development, but all of that were thrown out of the window for some paltry, utterly predictable villains, who were revealed very early on. I think that the author had the chance to at least leave Cedric's identity a secret. She had done a good job with this one flashback where she had hinted that Cedric was not all he pretended to be (the one where Lucas and Carolyn were blamed for leaving the stable door open). Maybe then I could have been as outraged as Lucas was when he found out the truth. The rescue mission in the end was dragged endlessly.
To summarize: the writing overall was chaotic. The characters and plot were also chaotic and there was practically zero character development for Carolyn. I was going to rate this only 1 star, but the character development for Lucas's dad was well done, so 1.5 stars it is.
1.5 stars
The blurb would have you believe that this is a marriage of convenience whereby two childhood friends enter matrimony for financial purposes. The heroine has been in love with the hero her entire life and the latter only starts seeing her as a woman after their marriage. Forget everything you know about the marriage of convenience trope because pretty much nothing happens except for crazy villains bringing their evil plan to fruition at a French castle.
The writing is fine, but choppy. First of all, the story begins in such a confusing manner that I felt like Alice trying to make her way through wonderland. I had to reread several paragraphs to truly understand why the hero and heroine were acting that way. I almost got vertigo. Moreover, it is hard to follow both the narration and the conversation. Topics are switched abruptly or the characters say something random that does not connect to the subject of the conversation. Finally, I was not a fan of the way the flashbacks were inserted in the story. The flashbacks were written in detail and it was narrated in italicized font. I think the flashbacks would have been better used had they been included in separate chapters, rather than being included right when a character is ruminating on the past.
The characters and the plot were not well-written. Both hero and heroine were unlikable. We are told that Lucas and Carolyn are childhood friends, which is something that I can believe given the number of flashbacks there are. But Lucas always refers to Carolyn as his "best friend" and that I find extremely hard to believe. Lucas and Carolyn barely know each other as adults. They barely talk to each other about anything of substance. As a matter of fact, there is zero communication between them. They simply make assumptions about each other or jump to hasty conclusions without even investigating. For example, Carolyn immediately assumes that Lucas has a mistress when she finds out he bought a house. And when she mentions this to him, he does not even try correct her assumptions. Not only does Lucas not tell her about his project, he doesn't say anything to her about her inheritance. Even though their marriage was a business transaction, they didn't act like a team at all. Finally, there was no build up leading to the intimate scenes, except for the scene after Carolyn's race and the only love scene in the last chapter.
Carolyn acted out of character many times, throwing caution to the wind, even though the main reason she entered this marriage of convenience was to help her sisters. She was also dumb: who the hell immediately accepts a random family member without even questioning him?? Why didn't her aunt seek her and her sisters in England?? She asked no questions regarding this claim and just went along with it. This made no sense at all. Furthermore, Carolyn was always so unsure of herself. She kept changing her mind about Lucas and their wedding constantly and her reasoning made zero sense. Her self-esteem was so low that she kept refusing to admit he was jealous when she was around other men. She also took every little thing he said or did (or stopped doing) out of context. The lack of communication did not help matters either. When Lucas flat out told her she was beautiful, she thought it was only because he said it in the heat of passion. Then 2 seconds later, she thought to herself that he told her she was gorgeous and that must be true because he never lies. MAKE UP YOUR MIND!!! Carolyn NEVER stood up for herself. Don't even get me started on how she broke her promise by telling Cedric about her business arrangement with Lucas. What. the. Fuck? And the author did not even describe how that happened, which irritated me even more. And she wanted to give Cedric and Francois the benefit of the doubt even after being kidnapped by them. Girl, bye. Carolyn was a passive character who failed to make up her mind even in the end.
Lucas was a bearable character, but he was also stupid at times and very prideful. I can't believe he even thought for a minute that Carolyn was in love with that asshole Francois, even after the kidnapping business. Lucas was also kind of an asshole, but at least he was not a passive character like Carolyn and took action (even if his friend had to push him to chase Carolyn). At least he came to his senses after the whole ordeal, unlike Carolyn.
Moving on to the plot. The author had two wonderful tropes to play around with: marriage of convenience and childhood friends-to-lovers tropes. The latter was done well, despite the fact that I did not like the method of flashbacks the author used. The first one was poorly executed. There were so many opportunities for character and relationship development, but all of that were thrown out of the window for some paltry, utterly predictable villains, who were revealed very early on. I think that the author had the chance to at least leave Cedric's identity a secret. She had done a good job with this one flashback where she had hinted that Cedric was not all he pretended to be (the one where Lucas and Carolyn were blamed for leaving the stable door open). Maybe then I could have been as outraged as Lucas was when he found out the truth. The rescue mission in the end was dragged endlessly.
To summarize: the writing overall was chaotic. The characters and plot were also chaotic and there was practically zero character development for Carolyn. I was going to rate this only 1 star, but the character development for Lucas's dad was well done, so 1.5 stars it is.
tanaise's review
3.0
I would have given it 4 stars except that a large portion of the character motivations was based on one really important thing that the hero, for absolutely no good reason, never mentions to the heroine. Worst plot motivator ever!
poisonivy70's review
2.0
Not a horrible story, but not memorable. The key point that could have elevated it from an ok story to a good one is making it believable that these two characters were actually friends once upon a time. Aside from a couple of little scenes that attempted to establish that the H/h were friends as children, I couldn't believe that these two ever knew/cared for each other at all, and it made investing in their story hard to do, since the premise is that they were good friends is what is supposed to make you believe that they love each other, even if you didn't see it. Too much of the story is spent with them apart from each other and being deceived by the villains. Both the H/h spent a whole lot of time having things done to them, and not a lot of time actually talking to each other.
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