Only Trick

Soooo .... I think this was a solid 3 ½ Stars with a half or more docked for a crazy and unnecessary epilogue.

Right up front I must say that this is not the type of book I usually go for but the cover is hot, blurbs seemed interesting, the One-Click beckoned and a girl can't live on MM alone so I've had this sitting on my Kindle for a couple of months and October was declared clean-up-my-kindle-queue month.

At 25-30% I was kind of pleasantly surprised and enjoying myself and then we took a turn down FEELS highway with frequent ANGST rest stops and constant reminders of MYSTERIOUS PAST exit. The sex was great if at times overwrought but no I'm not complaining as first love can be overwhelming and in spite of their ages (Darby is 27 & Trick is 28) this is first love for both. The thing was that after a good start with a strong heroine and an enigmatic hero things went off the rails a bit for me. Darby becomes this needy, clingy mess who views every and any woman near or around Trick as a bitch who's out to get her man in spite of his protestations & demonstrations to the contrary.

Trick on the other hand seems to have no definable characteristics other than some poorly explained and inconsistent aversion to women except for Darby for whom he flips after knowing her for about 2 seconds. Don't get me wrong I do love me some insta-love but I just needed even a half hearted attempt at expressing why he loved her. Yes we are told she's kind, compassionate and caring but I'm not sure we are really shown that aside from her choice of profession (she's a PA) and Trick knows even less about her when falls for her after years of of being celibate and pretending to be gay . As for Darby she's just hot for the walking talking sex God that is Trick complete with tattoos, rock-hard body, mysterious past, few words and to top it off he's a make-up artist! What's not to love. LOL

But I digress. I was still enjoying the roller coaster of emotion & sex ride until the las 20% where the big reveal of Trick's past comes to light complete with evil "step-mother" and Darby who's every other thought or word is about how much she loves Trick, how her life started and will end with him and who was aware that his past could turn out to be not pretty suddenly can't cope. She leaves him for two months even as she witnesses his collapse as his memory returns and that in truth if we believe his version of events he was not to blame as he was a 20 yr. old addict . That had my head fuming. I can't stand weak or fickle love.

And then came the Epilogue. If you read the book and disagree with me and are loving it kudos to you. Wonderful. Really. But do yourself a favor and skip the Epilogue. I guess the author was trying to give her characters the happiest of happy endings but sometimes loss is part of life and we grow stronger for it and that's all to the good. All I'll say is that if I were Trick when I got one of my Christmas gifts that year I'd still be yelling WTF!!! to my dying day.