Where on earth to start? I rated this book 2-stars and it was a kindness. Even if we ignore the rampant punctuation messes and typographical errors, this book is a train wreck…best to just get out of the way.
The book is adolescent although the initial topic (serious abuse) is not. It seems to be written by someone with a very narrow view of the world with no experience dealing with survivors of abuse, which makes the lead female’s tragedy just a device for the story. That is unforgiveable and offensive in the extreme. Even the discussion about mental health at the end of the book, while laudable, does not abrogate the injustice of using cruelty and harm simply as a means to lead up to the meet-cute (which is anything but cute).
Note to other readers who have not yet read this book: the following two paragraphs MIGHT comprise a spoiler. I’m not sure. I forced a great friend to read the book on my Kindle and she hated the book and then decided to hate me for making her read it in the name of our age-old friendship. Currently, she has banned me for the next foreseeable girls-night-out dates…sigh…. She thinks I should leave it in, so I shall:
In the first few pages, within the first 10% of the book – so no spoiler alert needed - Sloane (the female lead character) is thrust into the tremendous loss of her parents and twin daughters who are killed by her ex-husband. After the burials she gets drunk (understandably) and he returns for her, beats her up and slashes her with a knife. She manages to grab his knife, now dangling from his pocket, and push it into his shoulder, then kick his face which knocks him out…while handcuffed to a pipe that runs up the side of a wall. While in searing pain she searches his shirt pocket, finds the handcuffs’ key and frees herself then cuffs him to the pipe. Next she finds his wallet, takes $312, grabs her slashed dress and takes off in her SUV driving non-stop for two days from Alabama (we are led to infer) to Virginia where she crashes her SUV near the clubhouse of – wait for it – the Steel Patriots MC and into the arms of the eponymous Ghost. Some meet-cute, eh? She is not a ninja, not an Army Ranger, not a fight club aficionado, not a Delta operative; she’s a mom and manager of a restaurant.
We assume she is still in her bedroom and only later in the book do we decipher that she was taken to a cabin for this abuse. The writer doesn’t tell us that she has been moved from her bedroom by her ex-husband. The only indication of this change in venue is that she is confused when she leaves the room she was brutalized in and isn’t sure of her location (easy to understand after the brutalization).
I should have stopped reading here; I wanted to, but instead went into speed-read mode.
The story’s timeline is off, as if the writer changed her mind, went back to update parts of the book; this served to make the story choppy and disconnected. She drove for 2 days straight, was asleep in the clubhouse for 4 days and later we are told that “she’d been gone from her home for more than two weeks now.” How’s that? And still later we’re told that her husband kept her for 10 days.
The insta-love that the male lead, Ghost, feels for Sloane is wildly inappropriate. What about a horrendously battered woman is romantic? That’s the love we are led to believe Ghost felt for Sloane when he carried her to the clubhouse from the gate. No waiting to get to know her, no waiting to hear her tale of woe, just a battered body. What on earth is there to romantically love about a pummeled body? That’s just weird and not at all amorous.
By comparison a minor issue is the first class upgrade on a ticket to London. According to the storyline the family lives carefully; it appears to be a last minute upgrade since the twins are packed for their trip which begins after their graduation party. So, there is no time for a cut-rate deal. The book was copyrighted in 2013 and at that time, a first class round trip ticket New York City – London cost $10,000 on a Boeing 777 on American Airlines or British Airways. These girls were to have been traveling in Europe before starting college. Wow: the times they could have had with $10,000. This little tidbit simply adds to the unbelievability factor.
The story goes on. And on. And on. There is more of the same with Sloane adapting quickly to the loss of those she held most dear (if we are to believe her back story). Her behavior does not support her loss. While the grieving process differs among us all, the Kubler-Ross model of grief management is generally followed (although it has its critics, some form of grief management always occurs in compassionate human beings).
The story is so implausible it cannot be enjoyed without constantly suspending disbelief. I hope this book does not showcase the writer’s talent because, in this case, it is lacking. I paused between a 1-star rating and 2-star. I gave it a 2-star and that was a gift.