Ooh, I'm catching up! I can't promise to be completely caught up in a certain amount of time, but I've started writing notes for my blog posts, in my Blogger app, while reading the books. It's working for me. I have 2 other drafts of books I finished last night, and another draft of a book I'm about 80% through with. Watch for those ones to be published here!
Until then... Here's another book I finished tonight... err, last night, for those of you who actually get to sleep when the sun is down.
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| Publication Date: October 9, 2014 |
15 years ago, Reed was convicted of a murder he did not commit -- regardless of what the town thinks. But now he's coming home, and he wants nothing more than to clear his name.
Not much longer after he's been home, Ella Porter, the daughter of the man who helped convict Reed, received a vulgar note much like the two Reed sent her when he first went to prison. He sent the notes to get a rise out of her father -- not that he wouldn't be thinking of little Miss Ella. Ella and Reed knew of one another before the conviction; his mother was Porter housekeeper. While they never spoke to one another, he'd seen her plenty.
Even though he denies this new letter, Ella is still convinced Reed is trying to scare her once she starts receiving heavy breathing phone calls after confronting him.
Ella doesn't believe for a second that Reed could possibly be attracted to her. His smoldering looks and the past letters mean nothing. He's cornering her because of her father. Besides, a man like Reed would never look at a woman like her. Ella is not pretty -- or so she believes and her adoptive mother allows her to believe. Ella is currently in an on and off, currently on, relationship with Dan. They've been playing this game for a year, yet haven't taken it to the next level. Ella's mother tells her she should be ready to marry Dan, that no prince charming will come for her. She doesn't exactly has suitors lined up at her door, after all. She should be happy with what she has. However, Ella has a hard time with this thought -- she has no desire to take relationship to next step (sex) nor does she have feelings for him. Every kiss and embrace is forced on her part.
Truth be told, while Reed is gorgeous, equally, he terrifies her. She literally fears him.
I don't really understand how one can be fearful yet attracted to someone. It goes way beyond dominant/submissive, which truly isn't a theme in this book...
"‘You have no right to talk to me this way. No right to think that I’d have sex with you.’ As she shook her head in denial, she held up her hands in a defensive measure, as if to ward him off. He took one slow, deliberate step after another, drawing ever closer, his gaze riveted to hers.
‘Give me the right. You know you want to. You want it as bad as I do.’
‘You’re wrong.’ Panic spread through her like an insidious disease, destroying her resistence. Why aren’t you screaming? Why aren’t you running from him? There’s still time.
He reached out to cradle her face with his hands. She sucked in a deep, startled breath. His touch was strong yet gentle. A shiver of fear and longing shimmied along her nerves. His lips settled over hers: warm and moist, demanding but not brutal. Female reacted to male – woman to man, recognizing her mate. Ella kissed him back with the same desperate need, and that response ignited an uncontrollable blaze within him."
Reed's wanting to go after Webb, Ella's father, turns into him wanting to protect Ella as well as clearing his name. But two people couldn't be more wrong for each other than a judge and an ex-convict, the senators daughter and the housekeepers son... Or can they?
I was actually quite sad that I couldn't get into this book. I wanted to, badly. I have many of Beverly's earlier works (DEAD BY MORNING, DEAD BY NIGHTFALL). Because I liked her other books, I wonder if this was a completed piece before her passing, or an in-process work that was completed by a ghost writer... On the flipside, there are authors I used to love, but as the years went on my reading style changed and the authors I enjoyed changed as well.
I really wanted to give this book a 3... however, I try hard to be open minded when rating books. Just because I had a hard time getting a groove in reading this book, does not mean it was poorly written. In fact, it was very well written. It just wasn't my java.
Regardless -- I did like the characters (I tend to like the characters regardless of my feelings of the book as a whole. I love my fictional people). I didn't care for Reed's overbearingness, and I really got annoyed/disgusted with Ella's pitiful you-scare-me-but-kiss-me act, but I did really love this line of Reed's:
‘Something we have in common, Senator. I protect what’s mine, too. And, as of last night, your daughter falls into that category.’Oh, Reed... you really are a pretty decent guy.
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