Tina's Reading Books

1.5 stars. Pretty disappointing.

The book starts off strongly with a great set up where Diana Pisano, the widow of a deceased billionaire is left nothing in the will but half the mansion she lives in. The other half of the mansion and ALL the money goes to her husband's nephew, Trace Montgomery, who just so happens to be her first love and the father of her son.

But the story nose-dives quickly. It was rather boring, trotting out one romance novel cliche after another. And the dialogue did not sound like stuff that normal people would say.

The biggest problem I had is that the entire conflict hinged on a 'Grand Misunderstanding'. You immediately cop to the fact that Trace and Diana have differing perceptions of what happened to break them up five years earlier. And yet each time they get to the point of discussing it, they refuse to re-hash the past. It was frustrating and cliche.

Also this was another case of where the hero does all the romantic heavy lifting while the heroine is doubtful, uncommunicative and distrusting.

This is also a secret baby plot where, for the life of me, I don't know how the heroine thought she could continue to keep her son hidden away given that the entire family knew he existed, she worked in the same building as Trace and they lived in the same house.

I also felt the heroine's insistence that the hero try to forgive his mother was some noble-marytr-heroine crap. The hero's mother had all the maternal instincts of a long-tailed skink. She was neglectful when he was a child, she is a raging racist and calls her own grand-son 'a bastard'. By rights, Diana should've been snatching this hose-beast bald not trying to effect reconciliation! Ugh.

This was perilously close to a DNF, but I forced myself to finish.