Hmmm. This is a difficult review to write. First, Ms. James is a good writer with a solid style. The book has an interesting plot that I believe would have been better suited to a full-length novel. It has a strong male lead, Jason with the FBI. The female lead, Chloe, is an odd mix of strength and fragility. When necessary (to the plot) she is courageous, resourceful, strong. When necessary (to that same old plot) she is weak, passive, powerless. Her character feels contrived.
The book starts out with the insta-lust trope. Jason the FBI agent falls for Chloe, the college girl who works at a coffee shop. It takes all of three minutes. He gives her his card with personal information on the back and we get first hand insights via the narration, first from Jason’s POV, then Chloe’s.
When Chloe is abducted (not a spoiler, it happens immediately and it’s in the advertising blurb on Amazon and Goodreads) Jason works the case. Chloe’s incarceration at the hands of her abductor is macabre, but necessary for the plot, I suppose.
Ultimately, the abduction episode takes a year to resolve itself. While it might have been a conflict of interest for Jason to take part in a relationship with Chloe while the case was being worked, after that year, there was no reason why he could not have seen her personally, even help her with issues that were sure to crop up; after all, he was there. However, he decides he just can’t. It’s a plot device that is way too obvious and we soon find out why the writer has Jason holding back. I did not care for it. He essentially cut her loose. The plot did not have to dictate his pulling away from her.
Jason, as an FBI agent, has a career that keeps him busy. Eventually he pursues a relationship with Chloe and is rewarded by her waiting for him every. single. night. Standing by, waiting on him. Totally wrapped up in his life. And what of her life? Chloe has nothing in her life except Jason, so page after page is filled with her insecurities and desires for him, only him. The writer needed to give her a career, an exciting curriculum, some involved friends, anything other than ONLY Jason, for whom she spends ALL her time waiting. And waiting. And waiting some more. Ugh. What a boring, unfulfilling life.
Chloe desperately needed something to do besides sit and wait for Jason to pop in. It takes gargantuan amounts of drive and determination to heal from the ordeal Chloe went through; yet all she gets to do is passively wait for Jason. This is the same incredibly resourceful woman who efficiently managed to get away from her abductor but who is now reduced to being a passive mushroom. Her life won’t get back on its path again if she simply waits on someone else to make her decisions. When Jason and Chloe begin their relationship, it has been a year since Chloe’s nightmarish abduction, and she has had weekly therapy sessions. I cannot imagine any therapist telling a patient to sit tight for a year, doing nothing but wait on another person, allowing that person to control key aspects of her life.
It isn’t as if there were no room in this short novella to develop complex scenarios. Far too many pages are devoted to Chloe’s fears of rejection, musings about Jason’s feelings for her, her lusting after Jason as well as his thoughts about lusting after her. These narratives are on repeat and the pages consumed by them could be removed without damage to the storyline. They seem to be fillers.
Jason’s interest in Chloe seems almost spurious. He saw her one morning in a coffee shop and was immediately enthralled. We are shown no reason for this, no justification for his fascination. She notices him and flirts. But that’s it. This 2 or 3 minute meeting becomes the basis of their relationship. I know, the insta-lust/insta-love trope is common in romance fiction. Because it is fiction, and time is fluid, this could be done so much better.
At 47% completion, I got bored. So many pages filled with the same thoughts going on in both Chloe’s and Jason’s heads. Page after page of fear, desire, fear, need, more fear, lust, still more fear…and keep repeating.
There are a few errors, mostly typographical, I think. For instance:
“Once I had tear about a foot long….” Ah…not sure, but maybe “Once I had A tear about a foot long….” I believe we’re looking at a tear in material, not a tear in someone’s eye.
“The first digit on the license plate I suspected was either an E or an F.” Digits refer to numbers, not letters. Maybe “The first character…?” Or “figure…?” Or just call it a letter.
“My thoughts were broken nearly an hour later….” This is an odd sentence. What does it mean? How are thoughts broken? This may not be an error, per se, but it is an effective means of pulling the reader out of the story in order to figure out what broken thoughts are. Can they be broken like a heart?
“I opened it had barely held back a groan….” I have no idea what the writer is trying to say.
“But if life kept going in the world kept turning….” Not sure, but maybe “But if life kept going AND the world kept turning…?”
I rated this book 2.5 stars and rounded up because the writing is good. There’s a lot of potential for the plot and for deeper character development. Even in a novella, the female lead can be shown to have some power over her life, and to be recovering because of her own determination and grit, not just because she wants the alpha hero to be in her life. He should be a juicy reward for doing good things with the way she lives her life, IMHO.