~Synopsis~
Bailey Cross grew up as the only daughter of a single mom. When she finds out about a family she never knew she had, she travels half-way across the country to meet them. On the night Bailey hits town, her nerves get the better of her, making her act out of character when she meets Wyatt Kincaid in a bar and lets him take her home. After a night that rocks her world, she races out of his bed as quickly as she fell into it. But, there is one thing Bailey can’t run from, the baby she and Wyatt created.
Wyatt went out looking for a good time and found a hell of a lot more than he’d bargained for. He wants more than a one night stand with the woman in his bed; he wants a chance at forever. But when he wakes up the next morning, she’s gone. He searches for her, but Bailey is nowhere to be found… until he goes looking in his best friend’s home.
~Book Review~
2.5 Stars
While visiting her
newly found family members in a different state, Bailey Cross meets Wyatt
Kincaid at a bar one evening, unaware that he’s her long lost brother’s best
friend.
There were quite a
few things that made this story not for me. First, it’s 100% insta love and
insta lust causing the romantic development between Bailey and Wyatt to be
lacking. While I realize this is a novella, instead of being told they spent
hours talking, an inclusion of their conversation and/or banter would have gone
a long way to allowing the reader to make a connection with them as a couple.
My biggest issue
though came with the attitudes and beliefs towards women by the males in this
story. It ranged from archaic to
downright offensive. A pregnant heroine
being harassed about being married off.
Female siblings treated as if they need male protection. The sexism simply became sickening and killed
not only the romance but the smut as well for me.
Character break down
wise:
Wyatt… had the
potential to be a cute guy, but I couldn’t take his over the top ways! I had to
put the book down several times he was just too much with his sexist
sentiments. He seriously needed to take
a chill pill and get a lesson on women’s rights because his approach to a
relationship was to treat his girl like property.
“I needed to work a little harder to convince her that while the baby was helpful in my desire to move things along quickly, we would have ended up man and wife no matter what.”
Notice he says man and wife, not the equal phrasing husband and wife.
Bailey…at times I
thought this girl deserved a metal for putting up with the old fashioned
illusions of the males in this story.
“I didn’t appreciate how a man I barely knew thought he could make decisions about my life for me.”
Maybe it was her
experience as a 3rd grade teacher that left her with far more
patience than I’d have dealing with grown men who act like children.
“Wyatt, I’m not going to marry you just because I’m pregnant.”
But then the more she
caved and gave into them, the less I had respect for her.
Bailey’s stepmother…She
was kinda funny in a cougar type of way. By the descriptions of her
character—trying to see her step-son’s friend naked—she should have been the
crazy of this story but strangely she often came off the most sensible.
Bailey’s brother…Total
controlling sexist jerk.
Bailey’s father….
Again, Earth to the 21st Century! You can’t force a man to marry
your 23 year old daughter simply because she’s pregnant.
And then…
This book contains
one of my pet peeves in realistic fiction—when medical facts are skewed for a
simple plot device or in this case an overly possessive H. Only a month after
having sex, Bailey visits the doctor where Wyatt goes all caveman about Bailey
not wearing panties for the male MD and an ultrasound is done abdominally for them to see the
baby. Having had two kids myself (and
many ultrasounds), this really bugged me because ultrasounds done in the
doctor’s office in those very early weeks of pregnancy are done transvaginally
for a variety reasons. In the real
world, Wyatt would have had to just suck it up just as he’d have had to do with
a lot of things women endure during pregnancy for the health and safety of
their baby as well as their own well being.
What the book has
most going for it…the sex. Well except for the sex following the h
puking. That just isn’t a sexy time for
couples no matter how much dirty talk it's wrapped up in.
All in all, I think
my enjoyment of this book would have been much higher if the medical facts would have been presented accurately, and the men would have quit behaving like Neanderthal males.
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