TW/CW: Racism

Aside from the bonus "epilogue" book, this is my least favorite of the Buchanan Brothers series. It's not all bad. There are things that I liked, but the major things I didn't superseded the little I did.

I liked Denise, to an extent. My problem with her is how she is absolutely fine with Aiden's constant gushing about how important Shane is to him. In all other respects, Denise was a confident, strong, successful woman. But the fact that she didn't mind playing second fiddle to Shane was a huge problem for me. It really didn't matter how much I liked her otherwise, I couldn't get over this.

There was a slight age gap, with Denise being the older one in the couple. I loved that.

Aiden was our first, and only "man whore" in this series. Even Mason, who had random hookups before getting with Shane, wasn't written as particularly promiscuous. While they didn't show Aiden with other women, and once he met Denise, he was completely, physically faithful to her (again, Shane being put on a pedestal here reeks of emotional infidelity). We are, however, constantly reminded that Aiden "loves women". While this isn't specific to him only loving women in the sexual sense, we do get the idea that he's been with a lot of women. I usually have more of a problem with the "man whore" trope, as it's incredibly over done. I didn't mind it as much here because three out of four of the brothers in this series don't fit within that trope, and that is a rarity. I'm more than willing to overlook this one. My only issue with this part of the story is the amount of times we are told of Aiden's love for women. This is a novella length book. Repeating anything is unnecessary.

We definitely get insta-lust/love. I felt this worked better in Mason's book than it did here. Once Aiden was "in", he was in. I didn't like the lack of respect he showed Denise. Both with the Shane situation, and with how he pursued her relentlessly, and then defined their relationship without asking her what she wanted.

I want to mention that this book does deal with racism. Denise is black, and Aiden is white. While most characters in this book are supportive of their relationship, one of the main plot points here is that the Buchanan patriarch (who we've seen previously, and we already know to be a terrible person) is not happy with Aiden being with Denise for no other reason than the color of her skin. This is quickly dealt with. None of the main characters are shown to be racist.

All in all, this one was not a win for me. Gabe's story is up next and (spoiler) that one gets a much better review from me.