Carter Reed by Tijans Books
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is the 3rd book I’ve read by author Tijans Books. In this story Emma (cliche pretty but doesn’t realize it) reaches out to Carter (sexy mobster and childhood buddy) after killing a rival mobster who was in the process of raping her roommate. As my favorite saying goes “I have mixed drinks about feelings”…the same rings true for my reaction to this book. Loved the premise- who doesn’t love a sexy mobster who rescues his childhood love from nefarious characters?!? However the story fell disingenuous for me in a few crucial parts. Perhaps with a little more explanation or understanding of the characters these could have been avoided. First, in a flashback scene you learn that when Emma’s brother AJ was murdered he instructed her to go directly to Carter for protection. For some reason she chose to ignore those instructions for 10 years while struggling to survive and inheriting a succubus friend named Mallory. Secondly, there’s several passages when it seemed the characters were being intentionally obtuse or difficult for the sake of adding more pages to the book. Admittedly it’s “voyeuristically” enjoyable (yes, I made up the term but I think it fits) when there’s angst and misunderstandings that further develops the plot but these seemed annoyingly obvious. For example, when interacting with her friends Mallory, Ben and Amanda our main lady Emma seems bound and determined to use as few words as possible, allowing them to make gross assumptions about her motives. Had she actually spoken like a “normal” character these misunderstandings could have been avoided and saved me from drowning my frustrations in a few too many glasses of sauvignon blanc.