Search - Wicked All Day (Neville Family, Bk 6)

Great, well written story, intensely emotional and hard to put down. A few twists to this not-quite-typical story, which made it even more interesting. Zoe and Stuart had amazing chemistry and with him especially you could feel so much conflict; he had years of denial to overcome in his feelings for Zoe. I enjoyed Zoe's emotional growth in this story as well, as she'd been kind of known as a shallow party girl type. But she really changed. I really enjoyed the relationship between her and Robin, as a true caring long term friendship.

What an interesting approach...!

Throughout most of the book, our heroine (Zoe) is engaged to be married to our hero's tortured brother. That's what youthful flirtation and reckless experimentation with heavy petting gets a young lady who should know better!

As the story progresses, it becomes more and more apparent that the engagement was a mistake on both sides. Robin (the brother and Zoe's best friend) grows more miserable and difficult with each passing day as Zoe plots to escape the entire situation. Meanwhile, because of an abundance of honor, our hero (Stuart) takes FAR too long to figure out his own feelings and even longer to make his feelings known.

Of course, there is a sweet little sideline romance for the jilted brother (Robin) who gets his own happy ending.

Story: 4.5 stars
Romance: 5 stars
Overall rating: 4.75 stars

Deliciously wicked romance with well developed characters and story.

I find Ms. Carlyle's writing tedious. She writes wonderful characters but doesnt seem to know how to move the action along. Instead you get much hand-wringing and angst yet doesnt move her plots along at any great pace. In Wicked All Day she introduce's beautifully formed protagonist and secondary characters but she could cut about 200 pages out of the center of the book and keep the beginning 5 chapters and the last 20 or so pages and have a more satisfying story.