Kim H. (rubberducky) reviewed on 8/17/2009 + 79 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 7

The only really positive thing I can think of to say about this book is that it offers a somewhat gritty and fairly realistic view of alcoholism, and the impact it has on the friends and loved ones of an alcoholic. That said, it's not enough to make this a good book. It starts off with a badly contrived premise (hero sleeps with heroine's sister - he's dead drunk & thinks it's the heroine), and makes pretty cheap use of such grave subject matter, IMO. As conflicts go, I can think of others I'd prefer, but ok, I could deal with it as long as Smith wrote it well and didn't stoop to bad melodrama. Unfortunately, she didn't. It was as tawdry and melodramatic as you could possibly imagine, and the H&H both suffer from alternating bouts of TSTL - PLUS, the heroine's sister is cast as a cardboard cutout villainess whose motivations for being a hideous pot-stirring witch are never actually revealed. Readers can presume that of the heroine's 4 sisters, this was the deranged one, she secretly hated and was jealous of the heroine, she was in love with the hero & wanted him for herself, or she was just a miserable human being in general, and enjoyed making others (especially the H&H) unhappy.
Whatever the reasoning was, KS, in her infinite wisdom, didn't see fit to let the rest of us in on it. From all appearances, I'd guess that she thought her time better spent on writing eye-rollingly stupid & contrived situations and inane dialogue between the H&H... and lots of sex. Which beyond the gritty (yet childishly clumsy) dabbling with the serious subject of alcoholism, was about all this story had going for it. This is my second and LAST Smith book and I won't be reading her again.

Grade: D-
Sensuality Rating: R

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