As some of you may remember, I wrote a pretty scathing review of some of Kristen Ashley’s earlier books in the Colorado Mountains series a couple of weeks ago. It would appear that I am a glutton for punishment, because I felt the need to read another and MAKE SURE they’re really that bad, because that many smart, well-read women couldn’t all like it if it was really that bad. I mean, literally thousands of readers on Amazon have reviewed and almost universally praised these books.
This may have been the least romantic romance novel I’ve ever read, and that is saying a lot considering how many thousands I’ve read since I first got hooked on Harlequins more than 25 years ago at age 10. The hero is essentially Patrick Swayze’s character from Roadhouse except with an extremely strong contempt and disdain of women that he verbalizes on a fairly regular basis in the 500+ pages of the novel. In fact, he flat out says he doesn’t like women. He drifts in and out of the heroine’s life for several years, with the longest stay being for four months at the beginning of their relationship. Eventually something terrible happens to him and he realizes he can’t live without the girl. What bothers me even more than the fact that he’s a dick, is that she always takes him back. And, of course her favorite sex act is giving head.
There’s the usual family drama, and since this is part of a series, several recurring characters from the previous novels make appearances. If these novels are in fact being written by Ms. Ashley, and not ghost written like I suspect, then she has a single formula she really likes to use. It was utterably predictable.
