Review: “The Wrong Kind of Love”
I’ve had varied reads recently, but I’m getting back to my goal of understanding tropes to help develop and/or market my own writing, which is trope-free: unpredictable, real-life romance with dubious “heroes/heroines”. I liked the premise of this one because I hadn’t read a “twin” trope to date, so it drew my interest.
The Premise
Nicole abandons her wedding with quite possibly the largest douchebag known to man — Marcus hasn’t just slept with a friend or family member, but he’s actually gotten her identical twin sister pregnant. A string of events leads Nicole to have her sister Veronica’s purse with her passport and ticket to a new place, and it seems like the best idea to get away for awhile. Her heart splintering among a truckload of alcohol, she has a wild night with a sexy stranger, Ethan — whose name she doesn’t discover until the next day, when she’s on his doorstep about to become his daughter’s new nanny. By that time it’s already far too late to back out, because she’s promised his sick mother that she’ll take her sister’s place and identity along with the new job. Ethan has no room in his heart for a woman, after his wife destroyed his faith in love even before her death. But Nicole’s sweet allure still drags him in, and she also can’t resist him — but her secrets threaten to destroy everything.
The Pros
I liked that this trope-filled romance featured several heavy topics and still managed to balance them with grace and care. Mental health, depression, sibling rivalry, addiction, infidelity, crumbling relationships, and many more issues all crossed the pages without weighing down the entire premise of the romance. The story was well fleshed out around these issues, without making them the core focus — and at the same time, prominently displayed enough to give the story substance. I also appreciated that the sexy moments were scintillating, without being overdone. The side characters brought enough additional flavour — the other Jackson siblings, the cute daughter Lilly, the stalwart matriarch, and the women including her friend Teagan and sister Veronica. The small town gossip and the weather also rounded out this story to position the reader in the heart of things, and it was well written.
The Cons
Despite the writing talent, some things bothered me. It seemed entirely out of character that a doctor — and in this case an ob/gyn! — would do anything with someone who was so clearly drunk that he had to rescue her from another guy moments earlier. Impaired judgement coupled with insta-love (when the characters don’t even know each other’s names) just isn’t a scenario that should be overlooked in a romance book, and while I’m not usually ruffled by these things, it stood out here. Combining medication with alcohol was another questionable judgement call in our heroine — not to mention dubious clarification of birth control coverage stood out with the hero (again, he’s an ob/gyn!)
In general, as a trope-filled romance, I expected to like the two main characters more. But it didn’t seem like Nicole had experienced any growth or change by the novel’s end. She was far too forgiving and had no backbone with her sister, and very little even with Ethan. Meanwhile, Ethan slut-shamed her and was overly possessive. I don’t mind flawed characters — hell, I write them! — but these aren’t the kind of flaws I can forgive in a typical romance. If it were any other type of novel, I would’ve been thrilled at the complexity… but these deviations were bothersome because it was supposed to be considerably light and fluffy. Indeed, like the title — I felt like it was “the wrong kind” of love, in more ways than one!
Conclusion
Despite these significant cons of the story, I still gave this a fairly good rating because I did enjoy it and it kept my interest. I was just disappointed because I really wanted to rate this so, so, much higher. There was potential here for something amazing, because the technical aspect of writing — the highs, the lows, the conflict, the tension, the dialogue… those all came together perfectly. But the actual plot fell short of rocking my world. My heart just wasn’t bursting at the seams for this couple to get together. Nevertheless these may be my own personal issues, and I would still highly recommend this book to anyone who appreciates a good, well-written story. I’m also looking forward to other books in this series, as I enjoyed the introductions to other characters.
