I’m so close to giving this five stars. I’m honestly not sure what’s holding me back. I had such a fun time reading this book! I borrowed the e-book version from my library and read it in a browser, and now I’m upset that all my bookmarks are going to go away. I never bookmark pages in a romance! (Okay, well, I never bookmark pages in a romance because I like the prose. I quite frequently bookmark the sexy parts for future reference.)
But dangit, I was just so charmed by Chase’s writing. I guess there’s a reason her books are so popular. This was the opposite of a generic reading experience.
I don’t even normally like alphahole heroes! I much prefer my romance heroes to be emotionally open and nice people. And Dain is like, the king of the alphaholes. Well, sort of. On the outside he is a huge jerk. On the inside he’s still a lonely little boy whose mother left him and whose father made him think he was the ugly spawn of the devil. Frankly, it’s amazing he turned out as well as he did. I didn’t even mind the cliché of it all, because it was so well done. Also, Chase’s heroine, Jessica, was the perfect antidote. She did not let him get away with anything. I very, very much enjoyed her as a heroine.
Also, there were several points in the book where I could feel it falling in to a couple of tropes and I thought it was going a certain direction, and then Jessica all by her self yanked the book in a different direction, and I was just like, Oh!
I haven’t read a romance novel that was written before 2005 in a long time, so I was half expecting it to turn into a dated cringefest, but this book very, very much holds up for having been written in 1995, when romance novels were a very different species. I am now very excited to dive into Chase’s entire back catalog.
[4.5 stars]
Happy Cannonball! Such a fun book to reach it with. Jessica Trent is a total boss. I generally just can’t with Dain, he annoys me a lot, but Jessica is so awesome that she saves the entire book, and then some.
I don’t know what’s up with my reaction to Dain. Normally, I want to punch characters of his type. But I just loved him. I felt so bad for him the whole time, I was genuinely upset. And at the end with his son, I legit CRIED.
Also, thank you!
Happy Cannonball! Jessica Trent is The Best.
Thank you! She really is!
Happy Cannonball! I loved this one and had very similar reactions to Dain. He shouldn’t work, but yet…
Jessica is maybe the best heroine I’ve ever read. This via audio was really good.
Thanks :) I might have to do the audio on re-read then. I do love a good romance audiobook.
Happy Cannonball! Loretta Chase is my all time favorite author, you can’t go wrong with any of her books in opinion.
Thanks! I’m really excited to start on her back catalogue. My library doesn’t have any of the other books in this series, though, so I’m going to hop to another one for now.
Happy Belated Cannonball! I totally missed this. I’ve only read a few of Chase’s novels but really enjoyed the Dressmakers trilogy.
Thank you!
I own the first book in that series, so I’ll probably get to it soon. I picked it up at a used bookstore almost a year ago now.
I missed your Cannonball too – congratulations!!!!
Thank you :)