Rowena’s review of The Downfall of a Good Girl by Kimberly Lang.

Hero: Connor Mansfield
Heroine: Vivi LaBlanc

Southern debutante Vivienne LaBlanc can’t believe bad-boy rock star Connor Mansfield is back in town for the New Orleans annual Saints and Sinners pageant. He has a reputation as wicked as his devilish smile, and Vivi has no intention of becoming one of his latest groupies! He once crushed her high school heart, so playing the saint to Connor’s sinner should be easy. But how can Vivi get those less-than-angelic thoughts out of her head-especially when Connor’s so good at tempting her to be bad?

This is my third book read from the Harlequin Kiss line and I’m starting to think that maybe it’s time to move on. That’s not to say that there is anything particularly wrong with these books but I’ve been underwhelmed by the whole lot of them. This book had all of the things that make a great story and it was good but I wasn’t completely blown away with the story or the characters.

This story follows Vivi LaBlanc and Connor Mansfield as they bumble along their way toward that happy ending.  Vivi is an ex-beauty queen and Connor is the bad boy.  These books are short reads but they don’t feel like them.  Sometimes they’re slow to begin and once they take off, it’s fine but getting toward the point where things start getting interesting is sometimes hard to get to and that was how I felt with this book.  It took a little bit for me to warm up to the story and to the characters.

Connor as a bad boy hero was convincing and as much as I am a whore for sexy heroes, I found myself annoyed with Vivi for giving into Connor as much as she did because he was kind of an ass.  At the annual Saints and Sinners pageant, Vivi is announced as the Saint and Connor is the Sinner.  The closer they get to each other, the more Vivi is drawn to him.  It’ s surprising to Vivi because she hates his guts and the feeling is completely mutual.  Nobody in town has forgotten the whole incident from prom and neither have they.

But as with all romance novels, the two main characters battle and bicker their way toward that happy ending and overall, it was a good book but it took me too long to warm up to the book.  There wasn’t anything particularly wrong with the way that it was written but more that I couldn’t connect with either Vivi or Connor.  They were both fine characters but they didn’t exactly reach out and grab me the way that I was hoping they would.

So this book is good and I liked it but well, thats about it.

Grade: 2.5 out of 5

This book is available from Harlequin Kiss. You can buy it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher for an honest review.