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Monday, April 15, 2013

Review: Taken and No Take Backs by Kelli Maine


Title: Taken

Author: Kelli Maine

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Publication Date: September 2012

Genre: Adult Romance

Series or Stand Alone: Series, Book One


Synopsis can be found here.
NetGalley review.

Review:

Merrick knows what he wants when he sees it. So when Rachel turns down the job offer he so generously gifted her, he wants to find out why. This sets him down a path that Rachel and Merrick would never have seen coming.

I'm still not sure how to describe my feelings towards this book.

I like the island location, the setting and the restoration project. I really enjoyed Merrick's backstory, his sad family history. He seems like he should be a very interesting and conflicted character. But there's something lacking in Merrick, maybe because he is full of extremes, uncontrollable temper and trust issues. I can't put my finger on it, but I don't think I like Merrick. I mean, besides the fact that he kidnaps Rachel. There are a lot of books where the main love hero is a very bad man, but through redemption, patience and love, he changes. Merrick...well....

And then there's Rachel. She's not very interesting, sadly. She turns down a job for personal reasons (which seem flimsy at best) and then wrestles with herself for most of the book because she is falling in love with her captor. She doesn't have any fight in her.

Most of the book is Merrick telling her how amazing he thinks she is and her second guessing herself. What? I don't see how Rachel is amazing. I don't see why he's infatuated with her. And besides the fact taht Merrick is handsome and rich, there isn't a lot of him to like either.

Now, again, I know this can work. But Rachel and Merrick's story doesn't do it for me. And I think it's mostly character based because, if I don't like the characters, why do I care?

Um, the sex? Hot! But not sure if it's enough for me to continue on with the series.
That is, until I realized that I had a small novella from NetGalley. 


Rating: 4 Not my cup of Tea

And a review for:


Title: No Take Backs (novella)

Author: Kelli Maine

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Publication Date: August 2012

Genre: Adult Romance

Series or Stand Alone: Series, Book 1.5

Synopsis can be found here.
NetGalley review.


Review:

Yes. As I was saying-
I don't know what it was that made me read this novella. I didn't like the first book, but maybe it was the sun or the idea of reading a short story, I decided to pick this up and just see how the characters were getting on. 

This picks up right where Taken stops. And the novella is way more interesting, intriguing and fast.

I don't want to give anything away, but I will say that this should really have been tacked on to the last pages of Taken. It would have left me feeling a lot better about sacrificing my afternoon for the first book, and would have made me think about reading book two.


Now, I'm curious about what happens.
All because of this little novella.

Rating: 5, Ok, decent like Diet Coke

3 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  2. that's too bad that you weren't very into this series. you know i like some hot sex in a book but it's not enough to save it. thanks for the review.

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  3. So, would you recommend even starting the series? I have been trying to determine if I want to read this, and I am so torn! Some people love Kelli's books and others don't...

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