SY Platinum, $2.99, ISBN 978-1005568733
Contemporary Romance, 2021
Catherine Belford has a one-night stand with bar owner Jackson Forester, who is tending the bar at that time. Giving the term “He poured her a drink!” a whole new level of meaning, he knocks her up and then, a few months later, has the baby dumped on him along with her father’s rich lawyer telling him to take that brat and do not trouble the family again.
Needless to say, Jackson is not happy that he has to pay the piper. How dare that woman does that to him! Who does she think he is, the father of the brat? Oh, wait.
The truth is more bizarre: Catherine was in an accident that sent her into a coma a few months after the shag, and for some reason, her father decides that the father of the brat can’t be told that she is taking a long shut-eye.
As it should be obvious by now, SY Platinum’s Cold Sweetheart is pure soap opera. What it isn’t, sadly, is an example of how to do paragraphs right.
That’s when it all came crashing down. He was a father. He had a daughter. He didn’t know the first thing about raising a child. He didn’t have any supplies either! Shit. He called Jacob. “Hello? I’m surprised you’re awake.” “I have an emergency!” “…What is it? The chick you took home is already clingy?” “What?! N-” Belle chose that moment to wake up and let out an ear-piercing scream. He cursed under his breath. “Was that a baby?” Jacob asked. “Yes, dipshit- that was a baby. Correction, that was my baby. And I need help!” “On my way.”
Uh… okay. Maybe that’s just the author’s way to create urgency in the narrative, I guess?
It’s also not a good example of how to do transitions right. This one abruptly moves from Jameson’s POV to a completely different scene in a different place in the next paragraph.
A lot had changed since Belle had come into his life. He didn’t do onenight stands anymore, for starters. He had had one relationship for 2 months but she didn’t like Belle, or rather, she wasn’t cut out to be a mother. He turned his light out and fell into an exhausted sleep.
The next morning, Samuel and Patrisha got called to the hospital early in the morning. “What is it? Is Catherine okay?” Patrisha asked, wringing her hands. Cathrine had been in a coma for two years, and the doctors were starting to think she may never come out. But with the money they had, Patrisha and her husband were never going to give up until they had to. The doctor who’d been monitoring Catherine since the beginning smiled, “She’s woken up.” Patrisha felt tears prick her eyes and she quickly went to Cathrine’s room.
Yes, there are some typos in there, but those are from the story itself. For once, I’m proud to say that I’m not the one making the most typos in the room!
When she got home, she called Tara and Quinn on Skype. Tara was feeding Toby and Quinn was munching on chips. “What’s up?” Tara asked, like having her boob hanging out on Skype was an everyday occurrence. Catherine took a deep breath, “I have a daughter.” Silence. “You got a dog?! OMG! What kind?” Quinn asked, excitedly. Tara was looking at her quizzically. She shook her head, “Like, I gave birth to a baby.” Quinn’s mouth worked for a moment but nothing came out. “And you’re just now telling us? Got jealous of Toby?” Tara said as a joke. Catherine looked at her intertwined hands, “I just found out this morning. When I was in a coma, she was born and my parents gave her to her dad.” “How’d you find out?” Tara asked. “I was looking for a pen on my dad’s desk.” “Who’s her dad?” “Jackson, from the club.” Gasps.
Okay, the friend assuming that the baby is a dog is pretty funny. However, how can her friends not know that she is in a coma? What kind of friends are they to not even be curious when she dropped off the earth all this while?
At any rate, she and Jackson reconnect, and they discover that the whole great sex thing is not just a one-off occurrence. They decide to get married, and then somehow Catherine recalls that she’s engaged to some bloke.
What, is that something one sort of neglects to mention?
Okay, okay, she was in a coma and she woke up discovering that she is a mother; I get it, and the glorious diddling from Jackson probably addled her brain further, but come on, why then does the author keep that from the reader? The whole thing just screams “I pull this out of my beautiful behind just to give this story some last minute drama!”
The end result is Cold Sweetheart being something of a beautiful train wreck. There is something about this story that elevates it from awful to a hilarious kind of camp, which is why I am giving this one extra oogie than it would otherwise deserve.
Then there is the occasional sly humor in the narrative to suggest that, perhaps, some of the more absurd nonsense here may be by design.
Still, this one is a pain to read because of the typos and the tendency of the author to compress long parts of certain sections into a gigantic single paragraph.
Did anyone edit this thing? If the author had paid someone to do that, it’s definitely time to demand a refund!
If not, well, it’s time for the author to look into getting an editor, because if this one had been anything to go by, an editor is definitely needed for the author’s future works.
