But the age difference, and his own issues with drinking and sex, threaten what seems to be a promising romance, and she goes off to college three thousand miles away in order to get over him. Can he manage to get through his issues, sober up, and win her back? What will happen when fate throws them together again?
This is a very erotically-charged book, with full-throttle passion and plenty of sensual writing. The characters are intense personalities, and the love story, though relatively simple, is at least given some time to develop emotionally as well as physically. Drake is carefully drawn so as to win the reader’s sympathy – his history, his protectiveness, and his gentlemanly behavior help counteract his alcoholism, his occasional fits of violence (admittedly spurred by his protective instinct, rather than by jealousy or suspicion), and the fact that he’s willing to have sex with a teenager (even one of legal age). Lana is a sweet girl, but she also has a backbone and is willing to stand up for herself, something that is quite pleasant to see in a romance novel heroine.
However, the premise is substantially flawed. It is difficult to enjoy the book, and the romance, if the reader has any understanding of just how bad an idea it is for a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old college student, not yet settled in her own life, with a troubled family background, to commit herself for life to a recovering-alcoholic rock star nearly twice her age.
The fact that it works in this case only compounds the feeling of unreality – even her protective big sister accepts the situation easily, which strikes me as uncharacteristic. The emotions are over- dramatized; everyone reacts melodramatically to everything, even minor issues such as not having their text messages responded to immediately. This gets a bit exhausting after a while. And yet, the problems seem to be all-too-easily solved – among other things, the age difference is pointed up as a serious problem for a chapter or so, and then nearly completely disregarded for the rest of the book, with no real discussion of the issue. The grammar, too, could use an edit – the occasional typo, misspelling and misuse of words (“you’re” for “your”, for example, or the use of “that” in the title rather than “who”) mar the story to some extent.
If you’re looking for an intense erotic charge, without too much concern for plot or for believability, this book fills the bill.
Reviewed for IndieReader by Catherine Langrehr