Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Based on reviews for the four books in this series, I'd anticipated an enjoyable and rewarding read. This is my first book by Shirleen Davies, and IT WILL BE MY LAST. I forced myself to make it to the 50% point, and rather than throw my eReader at the wall, I'll simply state my opinion on this book and move on. I will not finish reading it. SERIOUS PROBLEMS with this book: * "Heroes" do not screw every female within arms' reach (Niall barely finishes taking Kate [learns something rather critical about her circumstances while in her bed]...and *immediately* tells her he's still going to marry Jocelyn, and oh, by the way, he'll still warm yet another woman's bed on each and every Friday night. EEEEEWWWWWWWW! But we're supposed to believe he was faithful to his first wife. Don't buy it. * Head hopping became distracting and only got worse from there. On one page (the dance), we were in four character's heads (points of view). This is consistent....point-of-view switches were random (seldom purposeful), frequent, and often into secondary characters who had next to no "stage time." * Reactions were hit and miss....sometimes they happened and most often, they didn't. When something can't cause an emotional reaction for a character, how on earth can it affect a reader? * "Heroines" worthy of admiration do not fall in love for no good reason. The moment Kate decides she's desperately in love with Niall I lost ALL respect for her. Women do not fall in love with men who treat them like crap, ignore them, are hostile and mistrustful toward them. If this was significant to the plot, the writer could have adequately motivated it to happen. The motivation was completely missing. * This is not a romance. Romances develop over time, with CAUSE for the characters to develop tender feelings and attraction (physically and emotionally) toward one another. NONE of this happens before they fall into bed. * The opening chapter(s) with the four young boys were backstory and didn't belong in the novel proper. Take those pages out (better off to simply reference it as proper backstory WHEN it matters...which at 50% it hadn't mattered yet at all), and what remains is novella length. * Dialogue was stilted, forced, awkward. Often phrasing was much too contemporary for this historical period. Despite the stilted dialogue, the characters did not communicate. Cannot recommend. There are too many well-written books out there for me to risk trying another book by this author.