Originally posted 4/2/2012
I have just finished my second Susan Mallery book in two days. (Thank goodness for audio books that I can listen to while doing other things or I’d either never read or never do anything else!)
As with all of Ms. Mallery’s books, I enjoyed Accidentally Yours thoroughly. I will say that going in I had reservations. I read other reviews and most of them were bad or at least not shining. But as I read it I found that the things other reviewers/readers disliked were the things that endeared me to the book (and what keeps me coming back to all of Susan Mallery’s stories.) The complaints were that the characters were too silly, or annoying, or cynical, or that their acts (what amounted to blackmail) were taken too lightly.
Kerri is a single mom with a dying child (read below for the blurb). She has a single minded focus to make her son live. She does crazy, strange things to make this happen. She has strange, almost obsessive ideas about how to go about it. So, she is a little off the wall. But I ask you, if you had a child dying of a disease of which there was no cure or even treatment, wouldn’t you be a little off the wall and try anything you thought might help? Even pretending to have super powers?
As for the cynical bastard, Nathan. Well, yeah he is. This is a man used to being in charge and he lost his son to a disease he could do nothing about. That could make anyone turn into a jerk.
I did have one complaint. The thread with Nathan’s sister was distracting and a little more sinister than it could have been, but then mental illness is always more sinister than people like to think. However, I did feel like it added a little too much to a story that already had emotion in spades.
Real people don’t fit into nice little cookie cutter molds, they are complex and weird and may do or say anything. Susan Mallery’s characters tend to fall into line with that. Can I honestly say if I were in Kerri’s position I wouldn’t resort to blackmail? No, I can’t, because I probably would. Of course, I’d end up in prison, but…THAT’S THE BEAUTY OF ROMANCE NOVELS. You get your happy ever after, realistic or not. And personally, while I love characters to be “real” I read romance novels for the HEA. In Accidentally Yours Ms. Mallery has once again given us the best of both worlds.
All in all, I loved Accidentally Yours. It was both heart-tugging and comedic at the same time. 4 1/2 CURVES!
BLURB:
WANTED:
Single mom seeks billionaire’s pocketbook to fund dying son’s research cure. Will seduce if necessary. Blackmail is not out of the question. Miracles welcome.
Cynical billionaire seeks working mom with a heart of gold for PR campaign to improve his standing in the community. Must be willing to attend social events. Anyone looking for love, need not apply.
It seemed like the perfect match…until the unthinkable happened.
