The Davenports

 
 
~WRITING - PLOT - PACE~
Sigh...this was yet another book that had the potential to be much better but was brought down by the continuous unnecessary repetition about how much of a player the hero was. If I have said this once I have said this a million times I DO NOT need to be reminded ad nauseam that a hero is a player. You can tell me ONCE and I can retain that information. The constant mentions of, and the comparisons to OW really took SO much away from what was a pretty damn good story. Aside from that issue, I found the writing to be quite good. It was a fairly quick book. This author has a nice flow to her writing style. The pace was very good. The plot was engaging as well. Last, it was all wrapped up in a decent ending.


~HERO~
OSCAR...I really didn't like Oscar for the first half of this book. I'm chalking that up to the author's incessant need to remind us over and over and over again about his player ways. Then he had an AH-HA moment and became much more likable. Well, that is until the phone conversation with his Mother at 70% and the dismissive way he thought about Grace. Then I went back to not liking him much. I think he had the potential to be a really good hero. He seemed like a decent guy. He was sweet. He had a good heart. Loved his family. Unfortunately, the author placed WAY too much focus on his whoring ways and that ultimately took away from his character A LOT.


~HEROINE~
GRACE... Honestly, I liked Grace a lot for most of the book but then near the end, she started to get wiggy and even at 94% when the couple should be on solid ground she was thinking the following when Oscar mentions marriage “Would he still feel the same way in six months—a year? Given his track record, she doubted it. Honestly, at that point, I was done with her. She started out being a strong and feisty heroine but as the book went on, she got more judgy and insecure. Ugh...it drove me NUTS.


 


~SECONDARY CHARACTERS~
This book has some good secondary characters. I really liked Spider (I hope he gets a book of his own). I also like Oscar's brother TJ (who IS getting a book of his own). Terry and Louise were also nice additions and all of them added extra layers to the overall story.


~HEAT LEVEL~
LOW. This was a bit of a slow burn in my opinion. We don't get any sex until 70% in, but the scenes we do get were suitably hot. I'll be honest, I am not sure I felt this couple had great on page chemistry. It was OK but could have been better.


~ANGST LEVEL~
LOW. I didn't find this one particularly angsty. As I mentioned earlier, it had A LOT of unnecessary OW stuff. Twice we have to read about our hero making plans to have sex with some random after meeting the heroine (he doesn't ever go through with it, but it was still a turnoff for me.) On top of that, we get oodles of mentions of his past manho ways. At one point he admits one of the goals he set for himself was to “get laid every day.” Charming...isn't that?? There was no OM drama.


~IN THE END~
I liked a lot about this book. The writing. The plot. The secondary characters. The heroine (mostly). But it unfortunately, suffered from one of my biggest pet peeves (I don't think I need to repeat AGAIN what that was lol) and because of that I just couldn't connect with the hero. I didn't fall in love with him. I wanted to. I really did, but too much focus was spent on his past when it would have been better spent building the connection between him and the heroine. That said, I may still give the next book a read as I am really curious about TJ. Therefore yours truly is going to give this one a solid thumbs up and say I think a lot of people will really like this one.