Reviewer: Rowena Four Letter Word by J. Daniels
Series: Dirty Deeds #1
Publisher: Forever
Publication Date: October 4th 2016
Pages: 416
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"Love! That's the four letter word to describe how I felt about this unique, sexy story. J. Daniels' hottest book to date."---Penelope Ward, New York Times bestselling author
Fate. Hate. Love. Lies.Which four letter word will change their lives forever?
Sydney Paige was never so mortified to hear the words "wrong number" in her life. She meant to tell off the guy who broke her best friend's heart, but unleashed her anger on a perfect stranger instead. And now her world is turned upside down by the captivating man who wants to keep her on the line.
Brian Savage is living a life he's quickly come to hate-until Sydney's wild rant has him hooked and hungry for more. Soon the sexy woman on the phone becomes the lover in his bed. But Brian has secrets, and the closer he lets Syd get, the harder it is to shield her from the devastating mistakes of his past . . .
Four Letter Word is the first book that I’ve read by J. Daniels and while I wasn’t a fan of this book, I am curious about the next book in this series and I do want to read it. Go figure.
So this book starts off with the heroine’s husband telling her that he wants out of their marriage. She’s shocked as hell but she doesn’t need to be told twice. She packs her stuff up and takes off for her best friend’s house. They become roommates and Sydney (the heroine) begins moving on. When her best friend comes home in tears because she found out that her boyfriend isn’t the man she thought he was, Sydney does her a solid by calling up the boyfriend and cussing him out, only she called the wrong number and the guy on the other end of the phone call is intrigued by this crazy lady who got the wrong number. Ha!
The story had potential based on the premise. It was a good starting point for a romance but I found myself annoyed at every turn while reading. Sydney spends a huge chunk of the book in a phone relationship with Brian (the hero). Their relationship grows with every phone call and text message exchanged. Feelings develop and Sydney falls more and more the longer they talk. Brian feels exactly the same way but he’s determined to keep their relationship as it is. On the phone and not physical. He’s got his reasons for wanting to keep their relationship as it is and I even understood where he was coming from but that didn’t stop the two of them from getting on my hot damn nerves.
Sydney wants more from her relationship with Brian and is hurt when he shuts her down. The night he shuts her down, she takes off to a Lady Gaga concert and is determined to have fun and forget everything but when she gets a phone call from a friend from her old (married) life, things take a turn for the worse. This was probably where my frustration with the heroine really popped off. I don’t know if it’s because I’m older or what but I found Sydney so stinkin’ immature. You see, when she shows up at the concert, it’s Brian’s rejection that hurt her. She’s mad at Brian. She’s over everything. The phone call that she got was about her soon to be ex-husband Malcolm. He’s moving on too and now, all of a sudden Sydney cares about Malcolm. She calls Malcolm and goes off on him and says things to him that had me fed up with her because…bruh, really? You’re mad at Malcolm for doing the exact same shit that you’re doing with Brian? It’s not cheating when you do it though??
Brian wasn’t safe from my frustrations either. His issues with Owen, I got that. Him not wanting or thinking he deserved to be happy is something I understood too. I didn’t agree with it but I understood the sentiment behind the actions. My issues with him were his hot and cold attitude he had going with Sydney. They could talk about anything and everything and they can develop feelings for each other but they couldn’t meet in person. I thought that was dumb but what I really didn’t like were all of the secrets that he kept from Sydney. He has this side job that he hates, it’s an internet side job and we all know that the internet is forever. This side job was a secret that he kept from Sydney, a secret that he didn’t want her to find out about because he wanted to “protect” her from that ugly part of his life and while that’s stupid, that’s not what pissed me off about that whole thing. What pissed me off was that these two finally meet face to face for the first time and they have unprotected sex and she has no clue about the side job that he should have told her about BEFORE the unprotected sex. By the time that happens, I was completely done with pretty much the whole thing. There was way too many things that bothered me while reading this one that I just couldn’t even deal with all of the dumb ass shenanigans.
I’m still a little curious about the next book in this series but I wonder if those two would drive me up the wall the same way these two did. Probably. After putting this book down, I started to wonder if maybe I’m getting too old to read these NA romances but then I think about my love for the Ivy Years series by Sarina Bowen, the Grid Iron series by Jen Frederick, and some of the other NA series that I absolutely adore and think, maybe not.
Overall, this book just didn’t do it for me. I was seeing a lot of good reviews for this book and those reviews on top of the synopsis was what piqued my interest. Too bad the book was a disappointment for me.
Grade: 1 out of 5