I’d do anything to keep my mother alive.

Anything, including ask Ian Kerr for help. I don’t know much about him, except that he has more money than some small countries. And he’s willing to spend it on me. Just one catch: there’s a string attached, and not just the one I feel pulling me into his arms and his bed. There’s also the plan for revenge he wants my help with.

Every time he says my name, it makes my body shiver and my heart stutter. I know he’s going to wreck me, know there won’t be anything left of me but lust and sensation by the time he’s done with me, but even though I can see the heartbreak coming towards me like a train, ready to crash into me, I can’t get out of the way. I want what he makes me feel. Want what he’s offering.

This may have started out as something to save my mother, but now…now it’s about what he makes me feel. I’m in danger of losing everything that’s important. Worse? Ian's whispered words and hot caresses are making me believe that's okay.

I read this book for my book club meeting last month. Jen Frederick is an author that I enjoy so it wasn’t hard for me to jump right in. It didn’t take me long to read the book but when I was finished, I was a bit underwhelmed and I can’t blame that on the cliff-hanger at the end. I knew there was a second book so the cliff-hanger didn’t bother me one bit.

I just didn’t connect with Victoria, the heroine. And while I enjoyed Ian (the hero), I thought his high-handedness where Victoria was concerned was kind of offensive and reminded me of Christian Grey (even though I’ve never read those books). Yeah, we all wish that a billionaire would come into our lives, become so enchanted with us and then take us away from our poor lives. The fantasy is great but for some reason, it didn’t work for me here.

Victoria is a bike messenger trying to make ends meet. She’s taking care of her sick Mom and doing whatever needs to be done in order to make sure they have a roof over their heads, food on the table and their bills paid. Even if it means working for her douche-hole of a criminal step-brother, Malcolm. She does some shady delivery services for him, asks no questions and makes more money than she would at her normal every day bike messenger job. There are plenty of risks but to keep her Mom healthy and comfortable, Victoria will gladly take those risks.

When we first meet Victoria, I really liked her. She was a bad-ass with enough stress to drown a sumo wrestler but she kept right on going, taking care of business. So when Ian bulldozes into her life, I felt like a lot of the bad-ass I admired kind of went out the window. She turned from this determined young woman who was fighting the good fight against poverty to this new person who was trying to stay strong and independent by coming off bratty and whiny and who still rolled over whenever Ian was around. And then in the end when her life is drastically changed forever, I felt like she dropped the ball. The strong and independent girl that I liked in the beginning was completely gone. She spent so much time worried about her Mom in the book and then when everything goes to shit, she kind of just fell apart. Maybe it’s the way that I was brought up but when shit gets hard, you handle your shit. You don’t fall into a pit of depression and let other people handle shit that you should handle yourself and Victoria (I didn’t like her nickname, Tiny so I refuse to call her that) let me down. She wanted to put distance between her and Ian after all of that stuff with her Mom but who the hell was taking care of YOUR business while you were thinking of leaving him? NOT YOU.

Ugh.

My friend Tasha and I had completely different reactions to this book. She was hooked and though it wasn’t her favorite read, she still really enjoyed it but not me. Even Holly liked this book more than I did but sometimes it happens that way. I didn’t completely hate it. There were moments between Ian and Victoria that I thought were cute and the beginning showed such promise so that was good but those moments didn’t stand out to me in the end because I didn’t rush to start the next book and I have it to read.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Kerr Chronicles