Week Thirteen—Twisted Wrister by G.K. Brady

So, I’m cheating a little this week. I mean, not really. This is a review of a book I have read recently, so I guess it meets the criteria. But it’s not a book that I read FOR the project. It is, rather, an #arc that I got from Hidden Gems…but I was out of town for five days and got NO reading done, so the book I planned to review is sadly STILL not finished.

I’m such a slacker.

Anyway, back next week with The Holdout. I promise.

In my recent review of Not Another Billionaire, I complained that the book needed “more heart”. Well, I found all it’s missing heart and then some. This book has heart in spades.

I’m about to feel like one of the Three Bears, though, and say that this one has too much heart and too little editing.

The biggest problem is that the book is 100 pages too long. This wouldn’t be an issue if the 100 pages were actual, you know, plot, but they are just heart eyes. And I don’t have a ton of patience for heart eyes. Here’s an example of what I mean:

Instead, she’d won the ultimate prize—the man beside her—whose fern-green eyes looked at her with love so deep and so profound he breathed life into every part of her being while wrapping her up in his warmth and safety. Whose raw power caged in a beautifully sculpted frame made her heart gallop and her knees turn gelatinous. Every. Single. Day. 

In a romance book, you should get those kinds of declarations three, maybe four times in a book. When they are doled out infrequently, they are actually quite effective. When every page is full of them, well…the old blood sugar takes a serious hit.

Having said that, I did like the book a fair amount. I flew through the first 225 pages and found them quite enjoyable, even saying out loud “Huh…this one is good!” The characters were likeable, and their early friendship was believable. As they fell for each other, the slow burn was delicious.

But after they actually got together, it was like the author forgot how to write them, and they went from grown-ass adults to moony teenagers. The second half of the book was a SLOG.

So, for me, the first half of the book was a solid 4-stars, and the back half was a generous 2-stars. Generous as in I’m being generous.