Fiery French chef Élise Philippe is having a seriously bad day. Not only have the grand opening plans for her beloved café fallen apart, but Sean O’Neil is back in town and looking more delectable than ever. Memories of the electrifying night they shared last summer leave Élise very tempted, but she knows all too well that eventually Sean will be leaving…again.
Being back in Vermont—even temporarily—is surgeon Sean O’Neil’s worst nightmare. Returning home to the Snow Crystal Resort means confronting the guilt he feels about rejecting his family’s lifestyle years ago. But discovering that Élise is still in Vermont and still sets his blood racing is a very welcome distraction! Remembering last summer and how good they were together is going to make walking away more difficult than he could imagine….
This is book 2 of Sarah Morgan’s O’Neill brothers series and is set in a family resort in Vermont. I haven’t read the first book, and although it was apparent to me while reading this book that there was a previous book in the series, it was easy to start with this book as all the back story was very well explained. As mentioned above, this is the story of Elise, the French chef who works for the O’Neil family at Snow Crystal Resort and Sean O’Neil, a very respected surgeon.
This was a lovely book about relationships. The relationship between Elise and Sean starts off as all fire and burn and sexual tension and develops slowly into something deeper. I have to say though that as beautiful as the romance was, just as beautiful were all the other relationships in the story such as the one between Sean and his grandfather, between the three brothers, between the women in the family – all the people in the book were so wonderfully interconnected.
The dialogue between the brothers in particular was a lot of fun to read- the affection very apparent in a “Hey, look at knucklehead over here” way that only men seem to do. The tension between Sean and his grandfather as a result of his grandfather’s all encompassing love for the resort and Sean’s passion for surgery was also very well navigated and I felt in the end that the two resolved their differences really well. I love small town and big family romances because of how connected everyone is with each other (whether they want to be or not) and feel that Sarah Morgan did a really good job of it in this story.
While there were funny moments in the book, I wouldn’t necessarily call it a light contemporary in the vein of Jill Shalvis or Susan Mallery. There is a lot of emotional angst in this book and some pretty serious emotional issues particularly with Elise’s back story. I really liked how individually they had to work through their own problems before they could get together. I did feel that Sean’s personal development was better described and resolved in the story than Elise’s but was happy with how things worked out for her in the end. I also really like how Sean had to really put himself out there and work for the girl instead of the other way around.
All in all it was a very good contemporary romance with likeable characters and interesting interpersonal dynamics. It will be published on 24 June 2014.
I received this ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.
Meh books and Alphaholes
25 FebI’ve been really disappointed with all the books that I’ve read in the past few weeks. It’s been a good long while since I’ve read any that made me want to write about it squeeing in delight… and I want to squee my way through a book, dammit.
I think the problem with me this past month is that I have gone for the free books and the .99 cent (or so) books on Amazon thinking to save myself some money. What HAS happened is that I have bought heaps of books that I then skimmed and then promptly forgot about or simply did not finish (DNF). This resulted in me spending more than I would have if I had just bought a few really good books at a higher price point that I could really enjoy. It’s like when you’re eating at a buffet with a lot of not-so-good food and you keep eating and eating and eating looking for that taste you’re looking for, not finding it and then feeling slightly ill afterwards. That is how the past few weeks have been for me in terms of reading- too much meh stuff that has left me feeling vaguely dissatisfied.
(This is not to say that you can’t find some really amazing books out there for free or cheap, I’ve just had really crappy luck with them these past few weeks)
The other thing that I am seeing with some of the books that I am reading is the emergence of a breed of heroes I call the alphahole. I know that the whole imperfect, grittier hero is a hot trend at the moment but I find myself getting exasperated with it. What the heck is so wrong about a nice guy? You know, one who does NOT have a stable of prostitutes that he makes his money with or one that does NOT call women bitches or whores?
I’m a HUGE fan of alpha heroes. I love their take charge attitude, absolute belief in themselves and their need to take care of their women. LOVE. THEM. However, lately I’ve found that some authors disturbingly blur the line between an alpha and an alphahole (which is basically an alpha asshole). I get that there is this movement towards realism and angst. I get that they’re trying to portray heroes that are in stark contrast to sickeningly perfect, gorgeous, intelligent, billionaire, philanthropist heroes of the past. For me though, there’s imperfect and tortured and there’s just being an abusive, misogynistic pig.
I’m learning that there are certain things that I just will not accept in a hero. Salty language and dirty talk? No problem. Being derogatory to a woman and calling her a whore, slut etc and then justifying it to the heroine saying it’s okay because I’d never do that to YOU? Not okay. A man hitting a woman? Never okay.
I read a book recently where the hero was absolutely APPALLING to women. He had no respect for them aside from them being receptacles for his magic wang. He would call them bitch and forcibly evict them from his house, throwing their clothes out- after taking them home with him the night before! How in the world is a man like that hero material? This hero THEN goes on to say that yes he would hit a woman if she was “asking for it”. Arrrgh. Just typing that made me so mad! And it makes me even more mad because he then says he would never treat the heroine like that because she wasn’t a slut like all the other sluts he slept with. Given that he actively participated in the aforementioned activity this would make him a hypocrite of the highest level.
Being imperfect, sleeping around, having a tragic past, being surly and not too good with social situations- these are all fine and I can live with those. Being in any way abusive even if that abusive behaviour is not targeted towards the heroine, I’m sorry I simply cannot stomach. As a psychology major the whole “Oh baby I treat OTHER people like shit but I would never treat YOU like that” really pisses me off. I get that some of the romance heroes of old may have been a little too perfect but do I really want to read about a hero who is a pimp? Uh, NO.
There are authors who push the envelope of the alpha male but manage to pull them back right before they cross over that invisible line for me into alphahole. A really good example of this would be Kristen Ashley’s Chaos MC boys who are really rough around the edges but never cross over this line for me versus those in her Unfinished Hero series (Knight, ugh!) and Joanna Wylde’s Reaper’s Legacy which was a good book overall, but there were moments with the hero that left a really bad taste in my mouth. He is SO never going to be one of my book boyfriends. Although that cover is admittedly really nice to look at.
What do you think about this new trend in alphahole heroes?
Tags: books, Chaos MC, Joanna Wylde, kristen ashley, reading, reading romance, Reapers, reviews, romance commentary, romance readers