Kimani, $7.99, ISBN 978-1-335-43303-9
Contemporary Romance, 2019
His Pick for Passion is basically another story of a hot woman who falls for a hot guy, only to pull a bitch face when hos keep throwing themselves at him. She is Erin Fry, a marketing executive whose job never really plays a significant role in this story, and he’s Will Hampton, a professional basketball player who gets tail simply by exhaling in a woman’s direction. Well, except for Erin, because she doesn’t like him much, until she does, and then it’s “OMG, away with you hos, stop stealing my man YOU SKANKS!” drama time. Meanwhile, there are many secondary characters milling about, although refreshingly enough, this time there are about equal numbers of people telling Will to keep his skanky weasel out of Erin’s pen as there are those telling Erin to go get that thing with both her hands.
The problem with this one is that the story doesn’t take place in a believable or convincing manner at all.
Before the story opens, Erin doesn’t give Will much time of day because he is a skank and she doesn’t want to be another notch on his bedpost.
However, when the story opens, all it takes it a date of sorts with him and she’s basically throwing herself at him. Wait, what? How did this happen? Our heroine doesn’t behave like someone who will look down her nose at a player; rather, she seems like a thirsty lady who needs a tall drink immediately. The Erin in this story and the person that she was supposed to be before the story opens do not seem like the same person at all.
Then, Erin spends the rest of the story wailing that he is taking down phone numbers of skanks and what not, when all I can think of is that she’s supposed to know what kind of man he is. So why is she acting like she has no clue at all? Why would she harbor illusions of fidelity and pretty pink balloons when she already knows the type of man she is sleeping with? Again, this doesn’t make sense.
The rest of the story is tedious enough with Erin continuously grasping at every reason, rationally or not, to assume the worst of Will. Maybe I’m just mean, but it’s hard to feel sorry for or relate to this dingbat when she claims to have known what kind of man he is all along, only to have what seems like amnesia the moment she bounces on his pogo stick.
Add in all those skanks willing to create trouble, and this is another boring Kimani story of a woman clawing out the eyes of other women for the affections of a town bicycle. Really, if he’s really that much trouble, just dump that ass and go find someone else already. No man is that amazing in the sack to be worth entertaining all that paranoia 24/7 and likely having a nervous breakdown before the year is out, and it’s not like our romance heroine is after his money. So why bother?
Then again, the entire story happens in an implausible context anyway, so yes, why bother with this one when there are dozens of Kimani stories with similar plot lines, but with more consistent characterization?
