Underwhelming
Spoilers ahead!!
This is the story of Dax and Indigo. They meet during a bank heist and go through quite an ordeal together. Someone is killed and the other hostages are threatened and injured. During all this they form a connection. They can "speak" to each other by just sharing a look. I've been with my husband for 13 years and when I look at him too hard he always just assumes he's got something stuck in his teeth. I just felt like the author's used this excuse several times rather than allowing the characters to have an actual conversation. It frustrated me. I get that they are hostages and it's not a coffee date but that trend continued for quite some time. Instead of having meaningful conversations they would have sex or have inner dialogue that would bore me to tears. So Dax promises that they will get out alive and that they will go to Hawaii together. Indie is hopeful and that becomes her motivation to survive. Well, Dax disappears and is presumed dead. Indigo is rescued but is finding it impossible to move on. She's heartbroken because she wanted Dax to take her to Hawaii to see the sailboats. I could not understand that kind of devotion after such a short time. Yes, they went through a trauma but it felt contrived to me. She made it more than it was. So Dax is gone but turns out he gets himself into a situation and becomes a victim again. I won't go into that but he gets free and decides to dissappear for real. He allows his family to think he is dead. His friends , minus one trusted pal, and fans all thing he's dead. Nope, he's alive and moves to a cabin in the middle of nowhere to live like a mountain man hermit. He let's this woman, who he can have conversations with just by an intense look, think he's dead. What kind of person can do that!?! Seriously. How selfish can this guy be? It was seriously off-putting. He put these people through torture but it's justified because he survived a trauma. Oh brother. Of course, Indigo is a little mad but gets over it fairly quickly. I feel like I got more angry at my partner for eating all the pickles and putting the empty jar back in the fridge than Indie at Dax here. So she finds out he's alive and they start dating. Have I mentioned she has a 4 year old named Daisy? Who was also in the bank and formed a bond with Dax and stopped speaking when he died. Again, Indie let's that slide. You find out why Dax is so broken by what happened during the second kidnapping but I still didn't think it was a good excuse for the fake death stuff. So they start a relationship and continue with their intense looks. I started to get a little bored and kept hoping the book would end soon. Their are some side characters that are sometimes more compelling than the main characters. I liked Blake more than Dax. The ending was underwhelming and not even worth getting into. The Great Gatsby kept being brought up throughout hence why Indigo named her daughter Daisy. Daisy Buchanan is one of the most vapid literary characters of all time. She killed 3 people and surrounded herself with jerks. Was Dax supposed to be similar to Daisy here? Was this being brought up to make the romance more intense? I just didn't get it. I really didn't like this book. The writing isn't bad but the story just felt more disenchanted than romantic to me. I'm giving it 3 stars but I don't think I could ever read this book again. I just needed more.