Read on Wattpad.
Well, I'm a bit torn with this book.
The plot:
It had an outline (which I appreciated, after all, it was a chapter based Wattpad story), but not much else. It was meant to be a thriller mystery with a romantic subplot, but it was lacking in the meat of the thriller mystery, and the romance was rushed, and took center stage (I don't have a problem with hardcore romance, you can see it a lot on my shelves, I had difficulty with the way the book was -not- edited and cleaned out of mistakes and shit).
One of the biggest problems in the plot, in my opinion, was the reasoning, which was weird and wonky or lacking altogether. It came in the form of why did characters choose to do stuff that did not make sense (why would they run away from New York, and when found in Miami, go back to New York instead of hiding someplace else?), and in the form of how the author reasoned the driving force of the plot - for example, Nathan suddenly decided he'll pursue her in full force without even a thought about his job security (pun not intended), or how long they've actually know each other (as a reader at first it felt as if the minute he is reassigned to Hannah he started flirting with her -very professional..- and after knowing a bit of their history from his POV it was still weird- they didn't even talk before she drunk-kissed him, if he weren't her bodyguard I'd say he was her stalker by this kind of behavior. More will come in the "characters" part). I like to forward the romance as much as the next person, but my god, that was fast! It tried to create suspense towards this plot thread climax though not knowing what the climax was supposed to be (sex? Marriage? Kids? Telling the parents?? First kiss?), and every micro-climax that happened had no real resistance or aftermath which made it feel not that important.
For example - they had so much banter at first - are they interested in each other, are they not, will they finally have the courage to kiss each other, who will initiate, when, how, what will be the circumstances.. and then:
beach party at night, Nathan came and shoved away from Hannah a drunk dude who didn't understand the meaning of the word "no". Dark, adrenaline, he's "high" from just waking up at her room without her, he put his hands around her waist and pulls her close, some flirty remarks are thrown into the air, the feel of sand under her bare feet, the sound of the ocean and wind blowing softly around their heating bodies. Nathan says: "I would like to kiss you"…
Next chapter: Screams. Oh, they were laughing too, it's okay. Hannah steps away the hit dissipates a bit, and she decides to go back to the house without accounting him, Nathan at her feet, they get inside, dark, Hannah walks fast in order to relax and he pulls her to him and kisses her.
Did you feel it? The suspense went away in the middle there. It's sad when you can't work and tame the tension in your favor. It could have been good enough to kill the tension momentarily with the screams, initially the tension grows because the need for the action we wanted was not answered. Another thing is that the kiss was met with very poor consequences. She woke up and felt embarrassed went to the fridge, Nathan came to stand close to her, said "look at me" for five times, asked if she is going to ignore him every time they kiss (would have worked better if she was the one initiating the kiss again), and all is well, conflict resolved.
Characters:
The biggest problem with the characters was they were kind of boring and predictable. Halfway through the book I found myself forgetting the names of the main characters, it never happened to me before!
Hannah was fine. Not much to say about her except that it irked me she was letting Nathan say real possessive things to her as if she is a toy he doesn't want to share, with minimal, if any, objection.
"'I don't like people to touch what's mine,' He said in a low voice,..
'Uh, excuse me?'
'I'm being serious, Hanna,'
'You said the same thing about Patrick and you ended up as buddies,'
'You're mine' He said, ignoring my comment.
I smiled. 'Okay.'"
Also, the fact that only half way through the book, maybe even more, she finally had the revelation she did not know Nathan's last name, after starting a relationship with him, after having sex with him multiple times… I realized at that moment there are a lot of things she doesn't bother to know about him, like when they go visit his family and she doesn't even know his mother's name, so she stands there in front of her
" 'Happy to meet you Mrs. …'"
like a stupid uncaring wife.
Nathan. The "make you mine" part – "my Hannah" so fast in the story, "now you're truly MINE" after having sex… ooh, that was tough to get through – I did not appreciate that. He had some nice qualities too, but he needed to lean that the possessiveness is not some kind of cute\sexy quirk, but a flaw he needs to work on.
They both did not see any flaw in the other person. That is not the recipe for a good prospering relationship. When the blinding infatuating phase will fade they would feel they stand before an entirely different person, because it has flaws all of a sudden, something they weren't open for the other to have "he\she is perfect!".
The character I was most perplexed by was Christina, her mother. I did not understand her motivation for most things she did, and she just didn't feel real, I did not believe her and her existence.
Editing:
Was non-existent. Had editing flaws in both departments: storytelling editing (from the way the outline was supposed to become a story, and to the nitpicky continuity errors), and word editing (the way a sentence is structured, the choice of words, and spelling).
Storytelling editing – the book did not give us the reasons to believe the motivation of the characters. As I said before – why did they get back to New York from Miami? Because the outline needed us back in NY. They could think of a new hiding place, Nathan proved himself capable of protecting Hannah (why the author did not explore the possibility of their romance distracting him from protecting her is beyond me, this would be a good reason to come back to NY, where there are more bodyguards that will keep her safe).
Besides that, there were so many continuity errors: getting up after standing the entire time, taking steps closer when they were already standing near each other…
Word editing – I can't even begin to tell you how many times I had to change the tense of a verb in my head to fit the sentence structure. Suddenly a present tense in the middle of a past tense sentence. I'm not some English expert, especially because it's not my first language, but if you decide to publish something, at least skim through it looking for obvious mistakes and try to avoid them.
"He had a desk with papers and his laptop was opened."Ch. 23
" 'You know, just so you know, I would have taken responsibility,'" Ch. 23
"Inside, it is warm and it also seemed empty."Ch. 24
"He took off his shirt, leaving him shirtless."Ch. 24
These were from two chapters only, after I decided not to nitpick EVERYTHING…
I enjoyed most from the sprinkled chapters from Nathan POV because they gave some background in a well structured way. Jami knew how and when to give the background most relevant to the situation. The parts she had some kind of flashbacks made me appreciate her because that's where I saw most clearly she didn't just open a document and wrote what came to mind, she really cared for the story, the world-building and the characters, she just needed to spend more time editing it, which would fix most of the book's issues.
In the end, the story clearly had a skeleton of plot and characters but his meat was lacking and the skin was dry and broken. It had things I did not feel ashamed of liking but also things that caught on my radar that I couldn't smooth out and forget.
An okay book, light read, keep your eyes open for red flags, though. Not all is good.