Casee‘s review of Hot Finish (Fast Track series, Book 3) by Erin McCarthy.
Not all marriages last forever!
Suzanne Jefferson is broke, which is why she’s given up charity work for wedding planning. Fortunately, she has a high-profile client,and best of all, he’s paid in advance. There are just two teensy problems: The bride is a bona fide bridezilla, and Suzanne’s ex-husband is the best man. At least she thought he was her ex-husband!
But this one might…
Two years after their marriage fell apart, stock car race driver Ryder Jefferson still can’t stop thinking about Suzanne. Which is why he isn’t too upset that, due to a glitch, the two are still technically married. Now he’s imagining easing Suzanne’s woes by satisfying her needs in the bedroom. After all, that’s the one room they never argued in. Besides, with wedding bells ringing all around them, Ryder is wondering if,even though they’d quit the race a few laps too early,they can still come on strong with a big, romantic finish!
After the buildup of Suzanne and Ryder in the first two books, this book was anticlimactic. I was anticipating Hot Finish as a reunion story. In actuality, it was a story about a couple that never really split up. Oh they thought they did. They went through the legal motions (or so they thought), they stopped living and sleeping together, they even stopped acting like a couple. But they still saw each other regularly. They still compared their current lovers to each other. It wasn’t my idea of a reunion story at all.
Suzanne needed a therapist years ago. She never should have married Ryder in the first place, pregnant or not. She was too immature to realize what she had and when she didn’t get exactly what she needed from him, she split. After she completely emasculated him. I don’t blame him for barely fighting their “divorce”. It was only toward the end of the book that I got a glimpse of why Ryder would eve like Suzanne let alone love her.
Not that Ryder was that much better that Suzanne; he wasn’t. He was a child in a man’s body. When he met Suzanne, he knew that she was “the one”. Did he ever bother telling her that? No. Why not? She should have known, of course. He wouldn’t have married her otherwise. Forget the fact that she was pregnant when they got married. That just stepped up his timetable. He never even considered the fact that she may have thought that it was the ONLY reason he married her.
The whole marriage was a total case of miscommunication complete with amazing sex.
Enter the present. Ryder and Suzanne find out that they actually aren’t divorced. Suzanne is horrified while Ryder actually starts thinking that it may be a blessing in disguise. With that thought in mind, he begins to woo Suzanne in ways that only Ryder can. He wants to show her how perfect they were together before everything went south. What he doesn’t realize is that as far as Suzanne is concerned, everything started going south the moment he married her because she was pregnant.
Suzanne is such a raging bitch that it’s not even a little bit endearing. Yes, it’s a defense mechanism she has in place after years of abandonment issues. Instead of feeling empathy for her, all I felt was disgust for her bitchiness whenever she would get shrilly with Ryder. He was in no way blameless but he was clueless. Suzanne knew he was clueless but never felt like he deserved to be clued in. In that, I could never really feel for her as a heroine. Their story just didn’t resonate with me.
2.5 out of 5
This book is available from Berkley. You can buy it here or here in e-format.
The series:
I just read this yesterday. I think Suzanne’s self-esteem and pride issues were so overblown. Yes, those were her issues – she just needed to get over them. I liked the book more than you did, I actually felt bad that they loved each other but couldn’t talk to each other.
I gotta say that I still laughed a whole bunch too because I love McCarthy’s humor.
I think I’ll keep this on the maybe list for awhile….although I could easily be drawn in by the cover.
*ouch*
I really really wanted to read this one. But now…I think I’ll wait to buy it.
I didn’t think the book was that bad although I liked the others in the series more. The bickering and animosity between Suzanne and Ryder were a bit much but rather realistic. There were times when I wanted Suzanne to find someone else, a guy who could give her the security she needs without the drama (because, let’s face it, Ryder was an idiot albeit a good-hearted one).
This book was a 3.5 for me personally – which is a pity as i have loved all of EMc’s contemps. I was really looking forward to Hot Finish and it just fell flat. I agree that Suzanne’s character was not likeable. She seems much better from the other books. Even the sex scenes though seemed forced here. I usually love Erin’s sex scenes as they are always different from those in the previous books. Still looking forward to The Chase though.