Title: All Fired Up
Author: Lori Foster
Series: Road to Love #3
Meh
Thanks to Justine Sha for inviting me to participate in the blog tour, and thanks to Lori Foster, Harlequin, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This was a cute story. Not riveting but not terrible either. My overall feeling was an amicable “meh.” A little too cheesy for my taste.
Mitch was a nice guy if rather bland. It felt like he was supposed to come off as a tough-guy bad boy but he really wasn’t. Waaayy too compassionate and patient. Charlotte got on my nerves a little; she felt a bit like a lapdog with a high-pitched yip. She’d bark and growl for attention or to try to intimidate, but there was zero threat to her, and sometimes I just wanted to tell her to sit down and shut up. I did appreciate that she didn’t hesitate to lock herself in her office and call the police, though, even if she felt like she was overreacting. I feel like we got to know Mitch much better than her, but I suppose that’s because it’s largely his story; 95% of the conflict is his.
The supporting characters were pretty much on par with those two. Didn’t dislike any of them. I even liked Ronnie more than the leads; she had more charisma in her pinky finger than the lot of them combined. I wouldn’t have minded if she’d had a larger role.
The baddies were garden variety villains. The one-dimensional I’m-evil-because-the-story-needs-a-bad-guy type. I wouldn’t call them bumbling idiots but they weren’t far off.
If I had any problems with the overall story, I would say the opening scene was unfortunate. Mitch was hiding in the shadows, watching Charlotte struggle first with car trouble, then with a couple of drunk assholes, and all the while he was thinking how hot and sexy she is and what he’d like to do with her. Honestly, I half expected him to whip it out and start jerking off like a fucking creep. It took him way too long to step up and offer her help.
Later, Charlotte said that she never feared him for even a second, and I call all kinds of horse shit on that. She was alone in a parking lot outside a bar late at night, she had a flat tire and was for all intents and purposes stranded, no one she called for help was answering the phone, and two drunk guys were already harassing her and not taking no for an answer. Why she didn’t lock herself in her car or go wait in the bar, I don’t know. She gave some reason for not going back inside, but that was horse shit, too. But then, on top of all that, this hulking, scruffy-looking guy, a stranger, materializes out of the shadows and looks at her like she’s water and he’s dying of thirst, and she’s not even the least bit uncomfortable? I call that too stupid to live. Luckily, though, she made up for it when she hid in her office.
Overall forgettable, but if you want a light romantic suspense set in a small town with a heavy theme of family and redemption, this could hit the spot.
Chapter One Excerpt
AUTHOR BIO
Lori Foster is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author with books from a variety of publishers, including Berkley/Jove, Kensington, St. Martin’s, Harlequin and Silhouette. Lori has been a recipient of the prestigious RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award for Series Romantic Fantasy, and for Contemporary Romance. For more about Lori, visit her website at www.lorifoster.com.
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