✩✩✩
Elle Wheaton’s priorities: friends, career, and kick-ass shoes. Then
there’s the muscular wall of stubbornness that’s security expert Archer
Hunt—who comes before everything else. No point in telling Mr.
“Feels-Free Zone” that, though. Elle will just see other men until she
gets over Archer . . . which should only take a lifetime . . .
Archer’s
wanted the best for Elle ever since he sacrificed his law-enforcement
career to save her. Their chemistry could start the next San Francisco
earthquake and he craves her 24/7, but Archer doesn’t want to be
responsible for the damage. The alternative? Watch her go out with guys
who aren’t him . . .
As
far as Archer’s concerned, nobody is good enough for Elle. But when he
sets out to prove it by sabotaging her dates, she gets mad—and things
get hot as hell. Now Archer has a new mission: prove to Elle that her
perfect man has been here all along . . .
Publishing date: January 2017
Mature content: yes
Review: Running the risk of being the only reviewer that didn't like Accidentally on Purpose, I'm going to ignore the dozens of raving reviews on Amazon and Goodreads and just say it: this book did not work for me. Actually, from the whole Heartbreaker Bay series, the only book I actually enjoyed was On a Snowy Night, which is is novella... (read my reviews of Sweet Little Lies, The Trouble with Mistletoe and On a Snowy Night).
Where do I start with this one? Well, first I would like to have some main characters with a normal family history. There is not one single main character so far in the series which does not have some sort of family problem. Yes, I'm aware that all of us in some way have family issues of some kind and that friends are really important, but it's sort of depressing to read about so many dysfunctional families in all the books in the series.
Then comes the plot. It started out OK, but it went downhill for me the moment Archer plans one of his surveillance jobs, involving Elle and several of his friends, literally in their own backyard. Isn't that a bit far fetched for a supposed security specialist? What if the bad guy enjoyed the pub so much he decided to return and discovered that Elle and Archer both worked in the building and Elle was posing under a false identity? This does not make any sense at all and ruined the first part of the book for me. While I love a good romance novel, I do want the whole plot to be realistic, and this one just isn't.
Actually, Archer seems to be running his security business in a very relaxed way I really wondered how good he was professionally - besides looking hot with lots of weapons strapped to his body and interrupting business meetings to have sex with Elle in this office with all his employees in the next room waiting for the meeting to resume...Not to mention that he really comes across as a stalker when you realize the way the watched and controlled Elle's life in the past and is now ruining her dates with other men. If anyone did that to me, I would be calling the police immediately. Just staying.
And Elle, well, I had a totally different idea of her from the previous books, but in this one it's clear she doesn't really now who she is or what she wants. One minute she's drooling over Archer and the next one she's saying they should never meet or talk again. They are on and off for most of the book and after a while it gets tiresome. And the way she handles the whole pregnancy issue (sorry for the spoiler) is weird too.
The only good thing in the book? It's well written and some parts are really funny. In some passages I got a glimpse of what Jill Shalvis' books used to be and it made me smile. For that alone, it gets three stars, and hopefully the next book will be a lot better.
Happy readings,
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