Review: Coach Maddie and the Marine by Blaire Edens
Note: This ARC was provided by Entangled Publishing in exchange for an honest review.
I was suckered by an enticing blurb. Yes, I was. I admit it. I took one look at the blurb for Coach Maddie and the Marine by Blaire Edens and clicked on the button that allowed me to put in a request to review faster than you could say "Meh." And that's what the book turned out to be: page after page of meh-ness. We've got ourselves a grief counselor named Madeleine Westerfield, who became a widow eight years ago after her husband was killed in action, and David Sterling, a lieutenant in the Marine Corps and Maddie's late husband's commanding officer at the time of his death. They unexpectedly meet and expectedly fall in lust then fall in love, but I just didn't feel that chemistry that I demand from the main characters in the romance novels I read. I don't think that's asking for too much, right? I want some heat AND a connection!
But you see, the thing here is that there wasn't even all that much heat in the story. When Maddie and David were together, they were tepid at best. These two should have bonded over the fact that they've both lost the one person closest to each of them, and even though those losses were discussed, they weren't taken advantage of. The story became about peewee football--and that wasn't even all that interesting an angle either--and how Maddie and David say one thing and do another. There were shifts in emotions and actions that were abrupt, leaving me scratching my head and wondering if I skipped over something essential. I wanted to, at the very least, like Coach Maddie and the Marine, but sadly, I didn't. It's been a good long while since I last did this, and it pains me to do so, but here goes: this gets two stars. ♥
Date Read: 13 January 2016
Learn more about Blaire Edens.
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