Kimani, $6.50, ISBN 978-0-373-86434-8
Contemporary Romance, 2016
JM Jeffries writes about demigods and demigoddesses who are the epitome of physical perfection as well as the best in everything they do. In the case of Drawing Hearts, the heroine Kenzie Russell is a fashionista with an awesome eye for fashion, while IT genius Reed Watson made his first ten million long before it was legal for him to drink. These two meet when Kenzie’s grandmother won a casino in Reno, and now Kenzie manages the boutiques while Reed is in charge of all that computer stuff. Kenzie is hot, hot, hot, while Reed is basically a model in nerd duds. Thankfully, he’s not a nerd bro that every jock pretends to be these days in order to pick up girls.
Reed and Kenzie being so perfect is nothing new, if you have read the author’s last few books. It often boils down to the plot to keep things interesting, but alas, in this case, the plot is basically someone embezzling funds through the casino cash card system. You see, whenever someone pays for a certain amount to be transferred into the cash card, the amount that ends up in there is less than what the person paid for. So where is all the extra money going to? (I’m more concerned as to why it takes them so long to notice this problem – apparently it has happened for years and somehow nobody realizes anything amiss!) To solve the problem, Reed has to… do his computer things. Press buttons on the keyboard and stare at the screen, that kind of thing. It’s not exactly compelling stuff.
To keep things going, the author has the main characters basically telling one another how awesome the other person is, how amazing their friends and family members are, and how well everyone from previous related novels is doing. There are also far more “you already know this, but I must babble on and on for the reader’s sake” type of conversations here than I’d have liked. Additionally, the couples from previous books show up to show me how amazing their lives are, and they’d really like to see Kenzie and Reed get hitched too. I like these couples, but even I find their scenes here more filler than anything else.
Still, Reed and Kenzie are smart and likable types, if a little on the dull side due to how awesome they are, and the whole thing is very readable. It’s just that there’s not much happening here, and the story doesn’t exactly grab me by the throat and insist that I read every page in one sitting. A few explosions and some dead bodies would have livened up things here, I think.
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