I joined Kindle Unlimited and went on a terrible romance spree. I’m not even bothering with most of the books, but Meghan Quinn’s Dating by Numbers series irritated me enough that I have compiled a list of grievances.
In Three Blind Dates, Noely Clark is looking for a way to find love without trusting her terrible taste in men. She signs up for a new matchmaker service that comes with it’s own restaurant and dating app. Noely is the cohost of a morning show in Malibu, so naturally, her dating adventures end up on her show. First she’s matched with a man she calls The Suit. After that flops, it’s The Rebel and then The Jock. There is actually some good stuff in this book. Noely makes an effort to get to know each man, and the reasons for ending relationships two and three are well thought out and handled reasonably well. Blind date number one is the problem. The Suit’s name is Jack and as it happens, Jack owns the dating service and is super wealthy. First they bond over their shared love of You’ve Got Mail, my least favorite of the Ryan/Hanks team-ups, and lust. After Noely slips up and mentions his name on air, he breaks up with her and then plays dog in the manger for the rest of the book. Naturally, they end up together, because a woman saying no should never be a roadblock to romance.
I wish the mystery man had ended up being the bartender, because Jack was a jerk and then went about wooing Noely in the most condescending manner. And in summary, I didn’t like You’ve Got Mail and thought that Joe Fox should have had his balls handed to him.
Two Wedding Crashers takes Noely’s “Rebel” and pairs him off with a romance writer, who is recovering from something dramatic, which will later be revealed. Noely ended things with Beck because he wasn’t emotionally ready to let Noely into his life. Beck takes a step back and realizes she’s right. When he meets Rylee (I hate this name spelling so much I am going to refer to her as “R”), he takes things slower physically and works at getting to know her. Both R and Beck have been invited by friends to crash a destination wedding in Key West for various reasons.
Just a note, never invite your friends to crash a destination wedding, or any wedding. That’s a real dick move.
There are obstacles to their romance. R lives on the Maine coast and Beck lives in Southern California. Beck has a tragedy in his past for which he is trying to atone – a drunk driving accident led to a death and he is a convicted felon. R has her own tragedy. It’s cervical cancer and a complete hysterectomy, which has rendered her unable to carry a fetus in her uterus. R seems to think this renders her ineligible for a relationship. There is one lovely scene where Beck and R bury her sweatshirt at sea after it was puked on by a baby. It’s charming enough that I kept reading all the way to the end.
My grievances:
1. Stalking is not romantic, please stop trying to make it so.
2. A woman is more than the sum of her uterus.
3. Meghan Quinn’s imagination is soooooooooooo white.
4. What the hell is wrong with Riley? Riley is a perfectly good name. Rylee annoyed my every single time I read it.
5. Conversations and honesty are important. There are no short cuts.
6. Random 4th wall breaking to be cutesy with the reader is lazy writing. Ladies, you are not Deadpool. Stop it.
There is a third book in this series set to come out this Summer. It’s called One Baby Daddy. There are not enough words to express how little interest I have in reading it.