review || ROOKIE MISTAKE { blog tour } by Dakota Madison

Short on Time Books | June 16, 2016 | Romantic Comedy Novella
California Dreams, book 4
★★★1/2

SOURCE: ENTICING JOURNEY

When a police recruit reports for duty he discovers his wild one-night stand from the previous weekend is his new field training officer. 

ROOKIE MISTAKE is a romantic comedy novella by USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR Dakota Madison. 

After serving seven years as a police officer in a small beach community is Southern California, Maya Navarro feels like she’s finally been accepted by her peers. Now as a newly appointed Field Training Officer she can finally make her mark. 

Returning to California after serving two tours of duty in Iraq, Cody Jackson makes the decision to become a police officer. He graduated from the Academy with flying colors and just has to make it through his field training to become a full-fledged member of the force. 

Maya and Cody are both nursing broken hearts when their best friends push them into a one-night stand with each other. Even though their wild night together is the hottest sex either one of them has ever had they part ways believing they will never see each other again. 

Until Cody reports for his first day of field training and discovers that Maya is his supervisor. Maya would rather die than admit to her sergeant the reason she can’t oversee Cody’s training. So she’s stuck with him for ten weeks of very close and personal contact on a daily basis. As things heat up between them they need to remain strictly professional, or risk ruining their careers. 

WARNING: This book contains foul language, sexual innuendo and a little bit of hanky-panky. Buyer beware. 

CALIFORNIA DREAMERS is a series of interconnecting romantic comedy stories that can be read as STAND ALONE NOVELLAS or as part of the SERIES. 

The CALIFORNIA DREAMERS SERIES: 

(Not So) Good in a Room (Nellie’s Story) 

So Far Away (Maddie’s Story) 

Beautiful Abyss (Chris’s Story) 

Rookie Mistake (Cody & Maya’s Story)

{ about author } .

USA TODAY Bestselling author Dakota Madison is known for writing romance with a little spice and lots of heart. She likes to explore current social issues in her work. Dakota is a winner of the prestigious RONE Award for Excellence in the Indie and Small Publishing Industry. When she's not at her computer creating spicy stories Dakota likes to spend time with her husband and their bloodhounds at their home outside Phoenix, Arizona.

 

{ review } .

This is a title that is being marketed as romantic comedy -- which is one of those genres that it very much miss for me and as such, I tend to rate them pretty harshly (sorry!). Rarely will I find a rom com novel hysterical (unless you're the Consequence gang), and sadly, this one did not get there. Don't get me wrong, it had it's funny moments! But it was more of an easy read, easy page flipper, not too much depth type of read for me personally.

Maya and Cody had their fun moments; the chemistry was certainly there. My biggest drawback with this story, though, was I couldn't get behind Maya's age, her thoughts, and her career path. They simply did not line up. From the beginning, her bawling over a broken heart over a guy she swore she loved, who she swore was The One, whom she only knew for three months... it just was too 'best friend from How To Lose a Guy'. And shortly after the 'how long they were dating' came out, her career came out and it had me losing further respect for this character.

Aside from Maya, though, Cody was fairly well written, and the story line itself, once we get over the theatrics of Maya, was well-paced. The last few chapters were great closers, but I was sad that the epilogue didn't quite get to it's full emotional mark for me. I wanted more -- emotion, thoughts, word count. And as an epilogue reader, I like to feel fulfilled when I get to the end, and I didn't with Rookie Mistake.