If You Were Mine by Melanie Harlow Published by Self-Published on February 28th 2017
Pages: 316
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Theo MacLeod wasn’t supposed to be the one.
Tall, dark and handsome suits me just fine, but the cocky grin, know-it-all attitude, and mammoth ego? No thanks. I only hired him so I wouldn’t have to sit at the singles table again. It was just pretend.
He wasn’t supposed to kiss me.
My heart wasn’t supposed to pound.
We weren’t supposed to spend the night together—the hottest night of my life.
One night turns into a snowed-in weekend away, and even the blizzard of the century can’t cool the fire between us. I can’t get enough—of his smile, of his body, of the way he makes me feel.
We’re nothing alike. He’s a daredevil, and I’m a nervous Nellie. He’s a drifter, and I want to put down roots. He’s an opportunist with a checkered past, and I’m a Girl Scout volunteer.
But none of it matters when I’m in his arms.
I know he’s made mistakes. I know his wounds are deep, and he doesn’t trust easily. I know he doesn’t believe he could ever be enough to make me happy, but he could.
All he has to do is stay.
I’m just going to rip this Band Aid off. Although I am terribly fond of Melanie Harlow, I was decidedly underwhelmed by If You Were Mine. The story of a perpetually lonely single woman hiring a handsome yet emotionally wounded man to be her wedding date appealed to me. I was fully onboard in the beginning, but shortly after the wedding I realized that things weren’t clicking for me.
Claire and Theo are sympathetic characters with good chemistry. Their back stories provide ample material to develop a complex relationship between the pair, but their pacing is off. Moments that should be lingered on are rushed. Everything is a little too easy to be believable. The dialogue sounds trite, the storytelling is choppy, and the plot is predictable. The overall writing style just seems to lack the freshness that I’ve come to expect from this author’s work.
Ultimately, as much as I was looking forward to reading this book, it just wasn’t for me. Hopefully I’ll connect with her next book more.
**ARC received in exchange for an honest review.**
About Melanie Harlow
Melanie Harlow likes her martinis dry, her heels high, and her history with the naughty bits left in. When she’s not writing or reading, she gets her kicks from TV series like VEEP, Game of Thrones, Succession, and Homeland. She occasionally runs three miles, but only so she can have more gin and steak.
Melanie is the author of the ONE & ONLY series, the AFTER WE FALL series, the HAPPY CRAZY LOVE series, the FRENCHED series, and the sexy historical SPEAK EASY duet, set in the 1920s. She lifts her glass to romance readers and writers from her home near Detroit, MI, where she lives with her husband, two daughters, and pet rabbit.
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