tamabam

This was an Amazon freebie. Briefly, it's about a woman named Elena. She fell in love with Alec when she was 14 and they were together until he was killed in a car accident 16 years later. She's wracked with guilt about the accident, and has struggled all her life feeling as though she didn't deserve the life she had. Complicating things are her feelings for her dead hubby's cousin. She's known him all her life as well, and they fight like cats in a sack. Whatever shall she do?

Here's what I liked:

It was FREE.

The heroine swore. So did her sister, so did the hero. Just like real folks, and what a refreshing change. The f-bomb got dropped in conversation (sister says, "Oh for fuck's sakes, Elena!") They sounded like real people, and I liked that quite a bit. They insulted each other, flirted, and everyone that needed to had great chemistry. 

The scenes with Elena and P.J. were good, and the subplot with Elena's sister and the hot cabin owner next door was nicely done.

....and that's about it.

I'm not sure why the author felt the need to throw a whole PILE of extraneous filler into what were the bones of a good story. To create tension, maybe? Anyway, I didn't think it worked. By 2/3 thru I was ready to kick Elena in the ass. I have no patience with the "I'm not worthy" trope when drug on too long. No wonder her sister was saying, "Oh for fuck's sakes!"

The heroine was a spicy chica with a Dutch surname. Apparently this is supposed to explain the gleam in her eyes as a teen and her vivacious spirit. (Which was stomped into submission by her perfect boyfriend in his attempt to turn her into a Stepford wife.) We're then treated to a pointless info-dump about how her parents met, blah blah blah. It would have been more interesting if it was ever mentioned more than the once. Or tied in at ALL with Elena's personality. I might be wrong, but I don't believe one has to be latina to be "fiery".

Then, we are treated to flashbacks of her life with the perfect Alec, including over-the-top scenes with her husband's law partners' wives at various social functions over the years. This sets the stage for an unbelievable visit by the wives to Elena's cottage, where they trade insults with her sister and have unbelievable conversations about what they expect her life to be now that her husband is gone because it reflects on them. And then the partners themselves call her down to the office and accuse her of, um, being a not very nice person! Because she bought a cottage! And they want to know about her marriage, because Alec was so perfect. (I've known/worked for/with lawyers for more than 25 years, and lots of them are so self-absorbed they don't even care how their OWN marriages are doing, let alone a dead partner.)

What else? Oh, the phone call she gets from the police/prosecutor, explaining how the accident happened, how it was completely unavoidable, it wasn't her fault even though she tries to tell them it was. And by the way, even though you don't remember the accident well enough to notice that it WASN'T CAUSED BY YOU can you testify against the fellow driving the truck that hit you? Or maybe not because he might plead guilty, he's feeling pretty bad about the whole thing.

And then she tells her in-laws about the details of the accident, including that she told him she was leaving him RIGHT. BEFORE. THEY GOT HIT. so she wouldn't blame them if they thought she'd killed him, so they immediately call her husband's former law partners and they all decided to sue her for wrongful death. 

HUH???? 

And then everyone reconsiders for no apparent reason, and then she falls through the ice walking her new puppy on the lake and is in a coma for 2 weeks and has a nice talk with dead husband Alec, who reminds her that he wasn't perfect, and if he had it to do over again he wouldn't have married her, because now he can see that he was smothering her, blah blah blah, and then she miraculously wakes up and is free of guilt and can now tell the long-suffering hero that she does in fact love him too.

(takes a deep breath) And THEN, she goes with the hero to her former in-law's house for a holiday supper and finally tells her in-laws that she's dating their nephew and gets everyone's blessing (because the news that Alec wasn't perfect is only news to HER) and everything is coming up roses and everyone lives happily ever after opening presents at Christmas.

Or something like that.

Boy, I felt more strongly about this than I thought.  

2 stars for the basic story idea, which I liked. And the swearing and banter, because, well, because.