When General Hospital recently renewed Molly’s interest in writing romance, it spurred me to finally read this tie-in novel that I picked up from a bargain table years ago. Unfortunately, this lived up to expectations.
The only tie-ins to GH here are the three blurbs on the back cover, the dedication, and the “author” (Connie, who stole teenage Molly’s manuscript and increased the spice). Other than that there’s zero General Hospital in this and that’s a missed opportunity.
The original “author,” Molly, was such a romantic when she was a kid/teen (I hate that they erased that trait over the years, it was character defining and endearing and would have been a good contrast to the cynical worldview of her career in the DA’s office). Molly loved love and championed the various love stories in Port Charles so it would have made sense if she’d “written” this as a thinly veiled version of one of those love stories. It just seems like a no-brainer that fans would have enjoyed this more, and you’d think, most importantly, more books would have been sold, had this done a pseudo novelization of a favorite supercouple rather than featured characters who have nothing to do with the show, but for whatever reason this genre is rarely merchandised or marketed in ways that would best connect with their passionate fanbase.
Even with the lack of General Hospital related content, there were still things here that had potential to make this engaging in its own right.
The early premise seemed to be that this wealthy girl, Maddie, is trying to win a bet with her brother by taking a job, paying rent, etc., for the summer, it seemed like it could be interesting to watch someone adapt to such a change in lifestyle, however, the reader doesn’t really get to see her as a waitress or trying to live more meagerly, any challenge that presented or humor or whatever that might have been gleaned from that doesn’t happen on the page.
Also, finding out early on that Maddie’s a college rower, I thought well that’s something I’d love to learn more about, to see the level of training and intesity that goes into being elite (at one point it’s indicated that the Olympics are a possibility) but that too gets extremely little page time.
As far as Hank goes, I didn’t like him, maybe that would have been different if the reader had been brought into his PTSD more rather than just addressing it in a late conversation, and maybe if this had dug into the issues between Hank and his mom beyond what there is to eat, I may have felt more emotionally engaged with this guy, instead it was tough to feel anything other than annoyed by him most of the time.
And that’s unfortunately the main focus here, Hank’s annoying bevhavior and Maddie’s willingness to just look past it.
This guy runs extremely hot and cold from start to finish, he sets the terms, communicates as little as possible to the point of ghosting her, oh but he can always communicate just enough for sex. She cries over this guy, takes her temper out on her roommate instead of out on him where it belongs, she never holds out for so much as an apology from him or demands better.
If you like a situation where he’s somehow both possessive and disinterested, where he just kind of keeps her on a hook and she’s willing to dangle there like this is the last option for love she’ll ever have, then maybe you’ll find their relationship more entertaining than I did.