2 stars. This book was fairly decent at the beginning, but the author really bombed it by the end. The second half turned the heroine into an awful bitch, and several unnecessary things happened just for added drama. I hate hate hate how this story went down hill so fast from about the 60% mark.
So let me start at the beginning... this book begins with the heroine trying to get back home to NY because her twin sister is due to deliver her first baby, and the heroine promised she would be there. The hero is also traveling to nearly the same location, but for his best friend's wedding. They have a few run ins at the airport before realizing they are on the same flight, and then their flight gets cancelled because of bad weather on the east coast. They end up at the same hotel, where there's only one room left, so they decide to share. Realizing there won't be any flights out for days, and refusing to miss their events, they rent a car the following day, and begin the loooong drive from California to New York. They get to know each other during the trip, and develop feelings for each other, but the minute that the trip ends the heroine becomes a giant spaz. She then continued to be a giant spaz for the remainder of the book. TBH, I have no clue what the hero saw in her. But since this is a romance, there is a HEA ending with a good epilogue. Unfortunately, I just didn't care at that point.
There were a few things that really irritated me about this book... and ya'll know I like lists...
1. The hero is a playboy/manwhore, he is also a male model. He has women falling at his feet everywhere he goes. Everyone is constantly checking him out, drooling all over him, etc. The level that his sex appeal was exaggerated was just unbelievable and stupid.
2. The hero's best friend (a female) got married, and then less than a month later approached the hero and declared her feelings for him. It was SO UNNECESSARY. I was disgusted that the author needed to add this - couldn't there be at LEAST one woman who could resist the hero and his good looks? She even reassured the hero at her wedding that she was making the right decision and that she loved her fiancé... and then she just did a complete 180!!!
3. Some stupid drama at the end where the heroine, instead of talking with the hero for 5 minutes to clarify her beliefs... just ran away, then ran away again, and then kept running away. He tried to talk to her several times, and she LITERALLY RAN from him. WHAT AN IDIOT.
4. There's also a ridiculous conflict with some lecherous art teacher who was hitting on the heroine...this part of the plot just seemed so very misplaced because after she told him off, nothing happened. Why did this even need to be included in the plot?
5. In the audiobook version, which is different from the Kindle Unlimited version (I just checked), the heroine tells the hero that she loves him, and then a few pages later says "I like him, I really really like him. And I'm not one to throw around the L word so easily, but I think I could see myself falling in love with him, if it ever came to that. I don't want to rush this, I want to savor it..." I see that ALL of that was changed to "I love this man" in the KU version. But seriously, HOW THE FUCK IS SOMETHING LIKE THIS MISSED? It makes me think that the author was just so done with this book that she didn't even pay attention to what she herself was writing.
6. The big secret of the hero's comes out right before the end. It turns out that his girlfriend passed a few years earlier, and he was heartbroken and mourning her for the past several years. It felt like such a random afterthought to me. There were only tiny hints throughout the story that he had endured something so major. And those hints were just about how he had been heartbroken once before. We had his POV several times... can we say unreliable narrator?? How is he supposedly thinking of this woman enough to write journal entries about her, but not enough to think of her? I hated that the reveal came seemingly out of nowhere and was barely a blip in the overall story. Why put something SO HUGE into the very end of the story and then just move on to the ILY's like it wasn't a big deal?
7. Basically, the storyline of this book was just a complete clusterfuck by the end. The hero even comes in to model nude for the heroine's art class...because that's the only way to supposedly get her attention. Was that supposed to be a romantic gesture on his part? I honestly don't know what the purpose of this was. It's soooo hot when your boyfriend shows his twig and berries to a whole bunch of undergrad girls, right ladies?
Anyways, I ended this book disappointed. I DO NOT recommend this book.
Safe; no virgins, both were experienced but the hero was a manwhore prior to meeting the heroine, some OW drama from the hero's best (female) friend, some OM drama from heroine's ex boyfriend, hero was in love in the past and his g/f passed, no scenes with OM/OW, no cheating, both celibate during separation.