Publisher: Red Rose Publishing
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Heat Rating: 1
Blurb
FBI Special Agent Sam Blake is working undercover on the Catherine Jones case. Catherine is a mentally twisted and cunning criminal who uses wealthy men and then discards them. She falls for Sam's charm and he is intrigued with her and falls for her, then decides to help her instead of bringing her into custody.
But has he made a serious misjudgment and a mistake? Or will Catherine finally be set free from the dangerous past that has marred her life?
Denise’s Review
I knew there would be problems with this novella from the moment I started reading. There is a popular cliché in fiction wherein the leading character will describe him/herself by looking in the mirror. It’s a way to give the reader an idea of what the character looks like, but it’s not creative and very much abused. People rarely think of themselves as “a cute blonde twenty-something, standing 5’8’’” or anything of the like. Similarly, other people don’t look at others and think, “Oh, how wonderful is my 6’4’’ fiancé!” It leads to eye-rolls.
Were this the only issue with the manuscript, I might have overlooked it. However, the whole novella felt like the first draft of something that never met an editor. The flat all Tell no Show approach to writing, it made for a bloodless read. The characters had no distinguishable voices, such to the point that the “dears” and “sweetheart” and repetition of names (in the beginning, mostly) read like a sarcastic argument rather than a tender scene between soon-to-be-marrieds. Furthermore, the love-scene between Derek and Catherine, which wasn’t needed at all, consisted solely of the line: "No time was wasted as the two came together and soon the deed was done.” And who said romance was dead?
I looked up another review to see if any other readers found issues with this novella; the one I found, from Got Erotic Romance, said the whole thing read like a summary of a longer book. I would definitely concur.
1 Tea Cup!
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