3 Smooches
Synopsis
Thorne Ryker is losing control. He has a reputation for being overbearing. His rivals hate him because he doesn’t allow anything to get in the way of success, and women hate him because he’s never taken anyone seriously until Elena comes into his life, the one woman Ryker can’t keep his hands off…
Elena Monroe has just come out of a devastating relationship and doesn’t want anything serious. She builds enough walls when she’s around men but somehow when it comes to Thorne she can sense those walls coming down…
Will this affair change their lives for the better? Or will this just be another devastating disaster like their pasts?
Review
This was a story with an awful lot of potential; in the characters, the storyline and even with the author’s writing capabilities but it was just too compact. Everything was condensed down to the bare minimum so I felt we never really got a good sense of millionaire business man Thorne and aspiring writer Elena’s personalities, it skimmed along the top and had you craving more insight into their lives that unfortunately never transpires.
It centres around Elena finally gathering up the courage and intelligence to leave an untenable situation with her sad excuse for a fiance and also around Thorne, who secretly harbours feelings towards the complicated Elena, it’s only when they find themselves working together that they begin to form a deeper attachment.
‘“But you can hope that someone or something will come,” I said. “Something that creates a place inside your heart that is much deeper and stronger than that hole. It’s the only way to get closure. Finding something else or someone else you can lose yourself in.”’
Thorne has his dirty little secrets as all millionaire business men and wont to do but nothing that was completely shocking. I did find Thorne a bit too chauvinistic at times, ‘“You’re like one of those mind-numbingly boring housewives who refuse to give their husbands a blow job and then complain when they go to prostitutes.”’ It seemed sometimes that the words Thorne said never matched up to his true personality and his feelings for Elena; they were often harsh and uncalled for, in particular in relation to comments he made about Elena’s cheating ex. I do understand the hurt emotions behind the words but it felt a little too callous for the hero to be saying such things.
Elena was a little too back and forth and emotional at the beginning but as the story progressed so too did her personality, she evolved and gained more independence and strength and became more likable as a heroine.
It was a reasonably good read but if it had been lengthened with more much needed details and background knowledge and a little more development with the dialogue it could have been a great read.
~Nicole
