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tita_noir's review
4.0
I got sucked into this book and finished it in almost one sitting. It was exactly the sort of book that I needed to quickly engage me when I was picking up an putting down almost everything.
The premise is fairly simple but the execution is excellent. Cathy is a divorced mother of a very sick child. Her daughter has leukemia and isn't responding to any of the treatments. She's been battling the disease for three years. Cathy's ex is a serious dead-beat who wants nothing to do with her of their child. As a result Cathy's former, fairly comfortable lifestyle is a thing of the past. Her health insurance is maxed and out and will not longer honor the claims for the still stiff medical bills. So she's sold her house, her car, emptied her savings, her 401(k) and other retirement benefits. At this point Cathy is living pay-check to pay-check, hanging on by her very fingertips, terrified that one tragedy, one unanticipated expense will completely wipe her out.
This is where I think the book excels. The author paints an incredibly well drawn portrait of a woman who is at a place where she would seriously contemplate answering an ad where a man wants to pay her $3,000 a month for unencumbered sex. It doesn't have that whiff of a convenient erotica plot point. Cathy is truly tightly wound and has nothing left, not even pride. There is a great scene in the beginning where she goes to visit her daughter in the hospital and takes her a small package of skittles. A new nurse, one who isn't familiar with Cathy or her daughter, admonishes Cathy on the sweets.
Cathy enters into her business arrangement with the rich enigmatic Michael with a lot of trepidation and shame. But she comes to enjoy the time with him even under the shame.
I found Michael to be cold and engimatic at first but as the book progresses he warms up incredibly. He begins to get intensely curious about the woman he only knows as 'Winter' and breaks his own rules of non-emotional entanglement when he inadvertently finds out more about her than she may be aware. He also begins to examine his own closed off emotions and why he feels to need to have such an arrangement himself.
I loved the progression of the relationship. Michael for all his aloofness was a pretty decent guy. There were moments where Cathy would forget the true nature of their relationship only to be slapped in the face with it again. The conflict of the book obviously is the nature of their involvement. But there is another big doozy of a secret that Michael is keeping from Cathy that leads the relationship to a crisis point. I liked the build to the climax and how all is revealed both to the main characters and the great cast of supporting characters.
This was a richly emotional novel that was nicely written and completely absorbing.
The premise is fairly simple but the execution is excellent. Cathy is a divorced mother of a very sick child. Her daughter has leukemia and isn't responding to any of the treatments. She's been battling the disease for three years. Cathy's ex is a serious dead-beat who wants nothing to do with her of their child. As a result Cathy's former, fairly comfortable lifestyle is a thing of the past. Her health insurance is maxed and out and will not longer honor the claims for the still stiff medical bills. So she's sold her house, her car, emptied her savings, her 401(k) and other retirement benefits. At this point Cathy is living pay-check to pay-check, hanging on by her very fingertips, terrified that one tragedy, one unanticipated expense will completely wipe her out.
This is where I think the book excels. The author paints an incredibly well drawn portrait of a woman who is at a place where she would seriously contemplate answering an ad where a man wants to pay her $3,000 a month for unencumbered sex. It doesn't have that whiff of a convenient erotica plot point. Cathy is truly tightly wound and has nothing left, not even pride. There is a great scene in the beginning where she goes to visit her daughter in the hospital and takes her a small package of skittles. A new nurse, one who isn't familiar with Cathy or her daughter, admonishes Cathy on the sweets.
Cathy felt something inside of her snap. The air whooshed strongly out of her lungs. "Do you understand? Do you really?! Do you understand that my little girl has been ill for nearly two years? That she spends more time here with needles stuck in her arms than she does with me?"
Her whole body was shaking. She took a step forward and leaned in close, getting in the woman's astonished face. "There are no more play dates! There is no going-back-to-school shopping for a pink lunch box or colored pencils and crayons!" Fury poured out of her. "She started reading when she was five years old. She's smart and pretty and funny. She should be in school or playing with her friends. But she is here instead. And you're telling me that she can't have a few pieces of her favorite candy! You stupid, stupid, insensitive bitch!"
Cathy enters into her business arrangement with the rich enigmatic Michael with a lot of trepidation and shame. But she comes to enjoy the time with him even under the shame.
I found Michael to be cold and engimatic at first but as the book progresses he warms up incredibly. He begins to get intensely curious about the woman he only knows as 'Winter' and breaks his own rules of non-emotional entanglement when he inadvertently finds out more about her than she may be aware. He also begins to examine his own closed off emotions and why he feels to need to have such an arrangement himself.
I loved the progression of the relationship. Michael for all his aloofness was a pretty decent guy. There were moments where Cathy would forget the true nature of their relationship only to be slapped in the face with it again. The conflict of the book obviously is the nature of their involvement. But there is another big doozy of a secret that Michael is keeping from Cathy that leads the relationship to a crisis point. I liked the build to the climax and how all is revealed both to the main characters and the great cast of supporting characters.
This was a richly emotional novel that was nicely written and completely absorbing.
booking_along's review
2.0
I wanted a very easy one-sitting read that required no brain power what so ever, since honestly currently i couldn't deal with having to follow a real plot.
And i got this for free, so i thought why not give it a try?
And it was exactly what i wanted at the moment.
A very easy to follow and read romance that i will most likely have forgotten about completely in a week or two but still at least had me reading right now instead of doing nothing at all!
It had the rather typical female lead, that has to do something she rather not but has no other choice left, and the very typical male lead, who has horrendous mood swings and while he is all for wanting to keep it as sexual as possible is also jealous and angry as soon as the woman keeps something from him that has nothing to do with their actual sexual relationship.
I would have rated this book higher and liked it a bit better if the male lead would have been a bit less of an angry asshole.
I get why the author choose to do it that way and sure the past that comes up at the end of the book gives him at least a slight reason to want a very distant relationship with women.... but still. I hate it if a past event makes a character behave often like an asshole and then the past event is "revealed" and its suddenly okay that he was such an asshole? Yeah. no!
Just because something bad happened to you? That gives you no right to behave horrendously!
Sorry ... ramble over!
Other then the asshole moments of the male lead, the story wasn't bad.
It is a very typical romance, with a lot of sexual moments (It is listed as erotica by a lot of people on here so keep that in mind) but the cover clearly hinted at that so that was okay.
The writing was okay and there was an actual plot line running through the book so all in all this book was fine.
It was a more realistic romance, and by that i mean that the characters had a very dramatic life outside the sex scenes (a sick child, that pops up when convenient and somehow seems to be forgotten in other moments?).
If you want a well thought out and perfectly plotted romance book? Try another one.
If you want a book that has a plot outside the sex but you still don't have to concentrate on and you don't mind a storyline that involves a sick child? This is a very nice choice!
And i got this for free, so i thought why not give it a try?
And it was exactly what i wanted at the moment.
A very easy to follow and read romance that i will most likely have forgotten about completely in a week or two but still at least had me reading right now instead of doing nothing at all!
It had the rather typical female lead, that has to do something she rather not but has no other choice left, and the very typical male lead, who has horrendous mood swings and while he is all for wanting to keep it as sexual as possible is also jealous and angry as soon as the woman keeps something from him that has nothing to do with their actual sexual relationship.
I would have rated this book higher and liked it a bit better if the male lead would have been a bit less of an angry asshole.
I get why the author choose to do it that way and sure the past that comes up at the end of the book gives him at least a slight reason to want a very distant relationship with women.... but still. I hate it if a past event makes a character behave often like an asshole and then the past event is "revealed" and its suddenly okay that he was such an asshole? Yeah. no!
Just because something bad happened to you? That gives you no right to behave horrendously!
Sorry ... ramble over!
Other then the asshole moments of the male lead, the story wasn't bad.
It is a very typical romance, with a lot of sexual moments (It is listed as erotica by a lot of people on here so keep that in mind) but the cover clearly hinted at that so that was okay.
The writing was okay and there was an actual plot line running through the book so all in all this book was fine.
It was a more realistic romance, and by that i mean that the characters had a very dramatic life outside the sex scenes (a sick child, that pops up when convenient and somehow seems to be forgotten in other moments?).
If you want a well thought out and perfectly plotted romance book? Try another one.
If you want a book that has a plot outside the sex but you still don't have to concentrate on and you don't mind a storyline that involves a sick child? This is a very nice choice!
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