Reviewer: Rowena The Right Swipe by Alisha Rai
Series: Modern Love #1
Publisher: Harper Collins, Avon
Publication Date: July 2, 2019
Format: eARC
Source: Edelweiss
Point-of-View: Alternating Third
Cliffhanger: View Spoiler »
Content Warning: View Spoiler »
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 400
Add It: Goodreads
Reading Challenges: Rowena's 2019 GoodReads Challenge
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
Series Rating:
Alisha Rai returns with the first book in her sizzling new Modern Love series, in which two rival dating app creators find themselves at odds in the boardroom but in sync in the bedroom.
Rhiannon Hunter may have revolutionized romance in the digital world, but in real life she only swipes right on her career—and the occasional hookup. The cynical dating app creator controls her love life with a few key rules:
- Nude pics are by invitation only
- If someone stands you up, block them with extreme prejudice
- Protect your heart
Only there aren't any rules to govern her attraction to her newest match, former pro-football player Samson Lima. The sexy and seemingly sweet hunk woos her one magical night... and disappears.
Rhi thought she'd buried her hurt over Samson ghosting her, until he suddenly surfaces months later, still big, still beautiful—and in league with a business rival. He says he won't fumble their second chance, but she's wary. A temporary physical partnership is one thing, but a merger of hearts? Surely that’s too high a risk…
The Right Swipe is the first book in Alisha Rai’s Modern Love series but if you’ve read her Forbidden Hearts series then you’ll remember our heroine, Rhiannon, as she is the sister of the hero in Hurts to Love You.
Rhiannon Hunter is raking in the big bucks as founder and CEO of the dating app, Crush. She works really hard to stay on top and though she’s not all that interested in a relationship, she’s not above using her app to find hookups wherever she might be. When she hooks up with Samson Lima, she knows that it’s a night she’ll never forget. They have chemistry in spades and their night together was explosive so when he wants to see her again, she agrees even though she doesn’t usually go back for seconds. But then Samson ghosts her and her pride gets kicked in the teeth. She’s not expecting to see Samson ever again (and not willing to go there again with him anyway) but when she runs into him at a conference and finds out that he’s working for the company she’s hoping to purchase, her life gets all kinds of complicated.
Samson Lima can’t believe his luck when he comes across the woman that he spent a memorable night with. He didn’t mean to disappear on her and when he tried to fix things, she had already moved on and trying to find her proved to be impossible. Seeing Rhiannon again is a stroke of luck that Samson is not going to mess up again. After retiring from football in a most abrupt manner, Samson spent most of his time caring for his sick uncle and now he’s back at work, helping his Aunt with her dating company. Helping his Aunt by being the face of her company has brought Rhiannon back into his life and he’s happy about that but trying to get her to give him another chance is proving to be a tad bit difficult.
This book was a little slow to pick up for me. I wanted to like it from the jump but I found it hard to connect with both Rhiannon and Samson early on. I will say that I loved that they were both diverse characters without race being a plot point of their romance. I absolutely ADORED that Samson was Samoan because I haven’t had a bunch of luck finding romances featuring Polynesian characters. I’d love to see more of my peeps get their happily ever afters told. I’ve tried reading some and couldn’t really get into them so that’s been a bummer for me and I’m always on the lookout for more.
While I understood Rhiannon’s hesitance in giving Samson another shot, there were times when I wanted to hit her with the, “Either you’re in and you have to get over all of the other shit or you’re not and you need to let this guy go” speech because I felt like Samson kept paying for the same mistake over and over again. I also felt like he was paying for shit he had absolutely nothing to do with (mostly the shit with her ex) and though I know that’s not really something Rhiannon could control, I still wasn’t a big fan of it. Then on the flip side, I wanted to smack some sense into Samson too. I felt like he was far too passive where Rhiannon was concerned. I felt like far too often, he let Rhiannon get away with shit because he felt like he had to redeem himself for ghosting her. His character felt like a bit of a pushover and I wasn’t a fan of that.
Overall, I did enjoy the story and I see the promise that’s there for future books. I will definitely be reading more from Alisha Rai because I’m trying to read more diversely and she’s written some pretty solid romances so far but this one wasn’t one of my favorites by her. Still, I’d definitely recommend giving this one a try since most of the stuff that I didn’t care for are personal things. Alisha Rai is a promising talent and shouldn’t be missed.
Grade: 3.5 out of 5