Out of the five books in this series, I was most looking forward to this one. Which is why I’m so freaking disappointed.

From the minute we met Charlie (in Samson), I loved her. In that book she seemed like such a badass. I love that she didn’t fall over from Raiden’s attention. I was rooting so hard for the two of them!

And then we’re given the same exact characters as pretty much every book like this.

Say it with me: virginal heroine, manwhore hero.

And, yes, sometimes, as much as it pains me to say this, it works. Here it just didn’t.

Charlie’s points for not being with Raiden are actually spot on.

He’s controlling. Way over the top jealous and a fucking hypocrite.

I can handle a bit of a manwhore. And I’m cool with any character having an active sex life. But Raiden being with so many girls while Charlie had zero experience at all really put me off. There’s even a scene where she’s sitting at a table with her soccer friends and Raiden wants to talk to her. He then also realizes that he’s had sex with both of the girls sitting with Charlie. Like, seriously? Did we need that?

Nearly the entire book was centered around the fact that Raiden had been with a lot of girls. We’re practically beaten over the head with this fact. I think the fact that we are told this so much just put me off. I’m all for sex positivity. My issue was that this seemed to be Raiden’s only personality trait.

I honestly just couldn’t get behind Raiden as a hero because I didn’t much like him.

In addition to Charlie always being reminded of his super active sex life, she also has to deal with his off and odd mood swings. One minute he’s pursuing her relentlessly. Then he backs off. But the second Charlie so much as stands next to another guy, here comes Raiden and his mixed signals.

And I was officially over it when Raiden, who regardless of whether or not he’s with Charlie knows that he wants her, lets a girl he’s been with before paw all over him in front of Charlie.

Dude was a dick. Charlie deserved better.

I absolutely hate that this book wasn’t my thing. I wanted to like it so much.

I think it’s safe to say my relationship with this author has had its ups and downs. I liked her earlier work so much. So many of her previous heroes weren’t the same manwhore (I’ll never like that word. I don’t want to slut shame here, but it’s the word most used in this genre, so until I think of something better, manwhore it is) we see constantly. Hell, in the Buchanan books we had the unicorn amongst romance books: a male virgin. I don’t know if all of their recent books are this way, or if it’s just this series. I do know I’ll be reading the reviews of the newer ones before reading. I’m still planning a re read of the Enemies series. I liked most of that one a lot, and want to see how it holds up for me now.

And, because these are basically novellas, I did finish the rest of the series. While I didn’t like Raiden, I was still hopeful for the next few heroes.