Review of Rescuing Lacey by Rebecca Heflin

Rescuing Lacey by Rebecca Heflin

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Why are the main leads in a romantic novel always "irresistible" to each other? I understand that there is a formula, and I can live with that, but sometimes it just makes me groan. Too much predictability bores me.

The very first word of this book is "f***ing." The very first word! Nothing in the summary warned me of this, and I don't like foul language, so it really bothered me. I almost put the book down right there. I probably should have. Strangely, f*** is the only swear I noticed, and it was used a few more times, but not as often as I expected after that opening. Did Rebecca Heflin think this was a good way to hook readers? Well, it just made me angry.

When Luke and Lacey meet, they feel an immediate sexual attraction to each other. Now, I guess this happens sometimes in real life, but it just seems unrealistic to me that it would happen so often as it does in fiction. When I met my husband, I didn't feel an instant connection; the attraction slowly developed over time.

Luke is described from Lacey's POV as "über masculine." Lacey is described from Luke's POV as "almost boyish." This is another trope I see a lot in romantic fiction that really bothers me. Why is every female lead slim and small-breasted? Where are the curvy, voluptuous, plus-size women? Why don't we get to be romantic leads? And why is every male lead tall, muscular, and, well, an alpha male? Where are the geeks? Where are the non-athletes?

Speaking of POV, there's a lot of head-jumping in this book. I don't mind changing POVs, but there's no warning here. It often happens in the middle of a paragraph. And then, near the end of the book, after I got used to jumping back and forth between Luke and Lacey, suddenly we're in Luke's friend Tony's head. That really threw me for a loop.

Another thing that threw me for a loop was the overuse of obscure words. Now, I'm the first one to love a cool word. I've been accused of using too many big words myself. But when I have to stop every couple of pages to look up the definition, that's a little much. Thank God Kindle has a built-in dictionary. But then, I came across this little gem: proprioception." Kindle says "No definition found." I had to close the book and look it up on Dictionary.com. Not cool.

My final beef with this book includes spoilers:
(view spoiler)[When Lacey tries to seduce Luke, he refuses her because he wants her to tell him about her past. He thinks she doesn't trust him, and he doesn't want just a fling. He wants her to be open and honest with him, and she won't do that. She won't let down her guard and tell him about her experiences in war zones. Then, just a day or two later, he forgets all about this and beds her anyway when she hasn't told him anything yet. This really bothers me, because it ruins his character, making him compromise his morals just for a little sex. Oh, wait. I forgot. She's irresistible. Gag me. (hide spoiler)]

To be fair, it isn't all bad. The sentences were mostly well-crafted, with few grammar and spelling errors. Ms. Heflin is a competent writer. I just wanted something more than competence.



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