Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

IN A WORLD, where a town of hot, single (and emotionally available) men are just waiting around for women to move there as a way to get their shit together……Maddie Moore has broken up with an abusive boyfriend and lost her job in LA. Her recently deceased mother left Maddie and her two (sequel fodder) estranged sisters shares of a run-down resort in Washington State. Maddie packs it up and heads to the resort to try and make a go of it and get her life on track. Maddie is the middle sister, known as ‘the Mouse’. The older is the ‘Steel Magnolia’ (read: bitch) and the youngest is ‘the Wild One’ (read: flighty). Maddie nearly runs a hot biker off the road on her way into town. This hot biker ends up being the town’s mayor as well as the owner of the only renovation company in town. Sexy interactions ensue. Mr. Mayor, also known as Jax (*gag*), has past secrets of his own – none of which are earth shaking and which he easily gives up with a little prodding. Most of the book is quiet moments between the sisters bickering and Maddie and Jax trying to get in each other’s pants.

My title for this review once again has a double meaning:

(1) I have been on a big kick over the last year to try new subgenres of romance and new authors at every chance. As a result, I have found SO many good authors and have been pleasantly surprised by things I never would have thought were for me. (I used to read exclusively historical, so even something as benign as contemporary is pretty new to me.)   This is a small-town contemporary (a sub-sub-genre?) and it felt like each and every inhabitant of the town was being set up for his own book. (Yes, ‘his’ own book. If a female character had a name she was either really old or married. These men really ARE just waiting for women to show up.)

(2) The romance and emotions of the characters in this book seemed very tepid to me. The author *stated* that there were feelings at stake, but I never really felt for the characters. If they don’t have much on the line, it’s really hard for me to care about their happy ending. I don’t even particularly like angsty books, but this one was bland all around.

Jill Shalvis is a very popular contemporary author who had been suggested to me because she does ‘funny’. I guess some of it was funny? Maybe? It wasn’t ‘heavy’, that’s for sure. There was nothing at risk for this book, and I’m sometimes in the mood for that. So, despite all this criticism, I have put a hold on at my library for the next book in the series. I hear there are like 10 of them now. I may not make it that far, but I’ll probably finish out the three sister’s stories.

P.S. Jax supposedly gave up his *spoiler* (not really) legal practice only 5 years ago and yet he is a master carpenter and a one-man remodeling show. All I can say is that he’s lucky he’s rich and the only remodeling company in town because that set up is highly suspicious.