Tangled Up In You by Rachel Gibson

I have a surprising number of contemporary books on my keeper shelf. (If you leave out my Balogh collection, it's over half.) And yet, I think I'm harder on contemporary books than I am on historicals. As much as I enjoy a good contemporary, I'm even pickier about them than I am about historicals. (And we all know how picky I can be!)

Tangled Up In You by Rachel Gibson
(2007, Contemporary) 4/23/08
Grade: 3.5

Maddie’s life was changed forever when she was seven and her mother was killed by her lover’s wife, who then killed him and herself. Now she writes true crime books, and decides to learn more about what really happened all those years ago. She didn’t expect to fall for Mick Hennessy, the son of her mother’s lover.

I had mixed feelings about this book. There were a lot of good things about it. The author has an easy writing style that made it comfortable to read, especially once it got going. And the sex scenes were extremely steamy. I also appreciated that the author didn’t make the parents all good or all bad - we get a view of both sides of this story and how it affected everyone involved. However, there were also some negatives. I was really pulled out of the story by the authors incessant use of brand names and product descriptions. (Does anyone really identify every item that they use by product name?) And I wasn’t really convinced that Mick and Maddie had found “true love”. More like true lust. Just when I felt that they were connecting beyond their hormones, the book was over. I also felt that Mick’s sister, Meg, was a bit distracting here - she either needed more space or less space. I was interested in her story, but it was just teased here. (There was a little bit of “series-itis” as well, but it actually wasn’t bad.) Overall, it was a mix of good and bad - which made it hard to grade!

I think one reason I gave this book a bit of a boost is that she dealt with the back story very well, and didn't resort to turning one of them into the evil villain. I think that's a failing of many romances - anyone who has negative qualities must be evil, evil, evil. I like a bit of nuance.