Romance

I got the first book in this "series" in a Book Riot subscription box and liked it enough to read the second one and here I am reading Book 3 and they are starting to lose their charm.

This book had a slightly different set up than most and I liked both of our main characters but OMG the repetition here is nearly unbearable. We know why the Duke was disgraced, please do not tell me on every other page.

This delivers what it's supposed to deliver, I guess, beautiful people who want to hate each other fall love and have some steamy sex but boy does it make it a bit of a chore to get to the end. ( )

I was really rooting for this couple, so my disappointment in how this turned out is palpable. Temple was my favorite of the four founders, and Mara started out so strong and fearless and snarky. I loved reading about them, watching them spar, and anticipating how they succumbed to the other's charms. Most of the time when I think a couple doesn't fit, I dislike the hero. Usually he's the manipulative and selfish one. Not so this time. This time, after investing into a third of the book, I found out the heroine was the one that didn't deserve the hero, and it ruined the rest of the book for me.

Mara Lowe is one of the most idiotic, selfish, and manipulative heroines to cross the page. Before I go on, I want to point out that I love flawed heroines. Even if I don't agree with the choices made, I understand them. I know their secret desires and fears and how that translates to abominable behavior. With Mara, MacLean tried to create a heroine who behaved like a villainess but thought like an ingenue. She kept thinking about saving the orphanage. She kept thinking about sacrificing herself for Temple's happiness. She kept thinking about her guilt, but none of her actions reflected that. Instead of doing everything in her power to save her orphanage, she put them in greater danger by frustrating Temple. In the end, the only thing she cared about was being absolved for her sins. She never cared about Temple, her brother, nor the orphans. All I wanted for her was to die in a gutter riddled with disease because she was a heinous person.

I thought this in the previous book, and Temple really should've ended up with Pippa. Cross was a useless character. He easily could've been merged with Temple, and Pippa would've used her scientific reasoning to absolve Temple. She was the only person who knew he wasn't a murderer before meeting Mara. She also has all her knowledge on anatomy that would've been perfect for helping her fighter of a husband. She should've been his wife. Or Anna should've been, since she's brilliant and tender. Or Lydia, Mara's co-worker. Lydia's quicker than Mara and genuinely self-sacrificing. Mara was a fraud, and I feel like I was cheated out of a good story.

On a more technical level, MacLean falls victim to one of the classic writer pitfalls: thinking fights go on for pages and require lots and lots of punching to the face. As a second degree black belt and avid MMA fan, I can tell you this is definitely NOT how it works. Very few blows are thrown, compared to what writers describe. Not only that, none of them actually knows how it works. These people need to take a self-defense course and learn how to throw a punch properly! FYI, it's not in your shoulders. It's in your hips. HIPS. HIPSSSSSSS. And you NEVER punch the face. Maybe an open-hand strike, but punching the face with your fist is bad news for your hand. No wonder Temple lost feeling in his after a while. Unless you have gloves, which we're told over and over again that Mara never wears.

One final thing: I can't stand it when characters don't talk to each other, so I was probably doomed to hate this from the start. The one who was most guilty of this was Mara. If she'd been honest from the beginning about the orphanage, I would have a lot more respect for her. Instead, I can understand why Temple never trusted her. I'm still convinced he doesn't. I think there's more trauma going on behind the scenes. There were hints that his father was abusive, and I think that had something to do with why he clung to Mara. This book trivialized violence against men to a point that I was almost sick. I digress. Suffice it to say she's a monster who really should've died in obscurity like she knew she deserved. ( )

I see all these 4 & 5 star reviews and I'm wondering if we've even read the same book. This is terrible. The Heroine is absolutely unlikable and that is unfortunate because her potential as a strong woman character is there but the execution is poorly done. Just complete garbage. Do not recommend. ( )

Like with the other books in the series I found this to be repetitive with Mara not willing to just tell the truth to Temple and having to relive the same arguments over again. I just couldn’t really root for this couple, even by the end. I just felt indifferent. ( )