Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsLibrarian as sex goddess
Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2014
Take one petite but curvy redhead. By day, she's a dedicated librarian whose goal is to buy a bookmobile to reach people who can't come to the library. By night, she's an anything-goes sex goddess. Now, take one man (taller, handsome and wealthier than your average Joe). Put him on a nearby ranch with his race horses and breeding program. Voila! Falling in lust happens within the second sentence of this book. The rest of the story is comprised of Shane trying to resist his attraction because his ex-wife was unfaithful to him, and Annabelle trying to resist her attraction because her ex-husband didn't care about her inner self. As the tale moves along, sluggishly, there's lots of filler in which Shane struggles with his past, discusses it with two of his brothers, Annabelle also discusses it with Shane and with his brothers and with her friends, and...this is one of the author's trademarks: constant reiteration of the Past Trauma. Annabelle's ex-husband shows up so she gets her turn at reliving angst. The plot must have seemed too thin even for the author, because sub-plots are tossed in as well. One of Annabelle's friends is avoiding men but thinking of having a baby; another is planning her wedding; Shane's family is uncomfortably aware that his sister is treated like an outcast; another woman in town is planning to have a baby and may have to leave her job (babies play a MAJOR role in Fool's Gold, the setting of a long-running series). Just trying to keep track of all the pregnancies, infants, toddlers and teens is enough to require a score card. Another weakness in this book is that it is the middle of a trilogy. The Fool's Gold series is comprised of a bunch of trilogies, one after another. This book is the middle of the third such trilogy, hampered by the presence of characters from seven previous books and equally weighed down by the foreshadowing of future novels. I enjoy the secondary characters the most, I really like the setting, but this isn't the best in the series.
