Officially on Romance Probation
I finished this yesterday and sat with it until this evening. To be honest, if I pick up another bad romance this year, I am divorcing the genre. The entire time I listened to this on Libby, I had major deja vu. When I pinpoint what book it’s mimicking, I’ll be back to update you.
The premise centers on two rival writers competing to tell the story of Margaret Ives, a vanished Hollywood heiress finally ready to talk. But the execution completely lost me. You cannot write a contemporary romance where the main goal is the connection between the leads, yet spend half the page count on a third character’s life story. It splits the focus, leaving neither thread with enough depth.
Worse, about a quarter of the book was dedicated entirely to sexual tension—thinking about it, talking about it, and getting this close to doing it, only to stop. That’s great for readers who crave that slow burn, but all I was thinking was, Can we wrap this up? Let’s get back to Margaret’s story. It’s just not my thing.
When a book treats every element—from the romance to the leads’ heavy personal baggage—as vital, nothing feels truly developed. I kept asking myself: What am I supposed to care about most? For me, the answer was easily Margaret’s backstory. That was the part I loved the most, but it was cut short to make room for a total insta-love romance where the guy is professing his love by week two.
I liked the concept, and the library listen was enjoyable enough, but the book tried to do too much. I am incredibly glad I borrowed this instead of buying it, because it would have been an immediate unhaul. I’ll try the next book-themed romance in the future—but strictly in a “borrow, don’t own” capacity.
