Oz Books, $3.99, ISBN 978-1310663482
Contemporary Romance, 2015
Stephanie Prescott has just inherited her late grandfather’s bookstore Old Town Books for a month when problems strike. She doesn’t need that. She had extricated herself from an abusive relationship and being pursued by a fabulously wealthy and hot dude is the last thing she needs. Okay, Matthew King isn’t pursuing her, at least not at first. This super wealthy fellow that made his fortune in retail wants to buy every store in the block so that he can demolish the whole thing to satisfy his own vendetta, and yes, guess which store is the only one that he can’t purchase. Will the owner of the King Hardware gets to… oh, that is too easy and unworthy of even me.
Despite the premise that sounds like it’s been done many times before, Kendra Little’s King is actually a very readable story that manages to elevate itself by having a heroine that isn’t entirely cookie-cutter formula. Another author may make Stephanie a flailing flop, for example, to make me wonder why this moron refuses to sell when she can’t run a business to save her life. Here, however, the author doesn’t make the heroine such a mumu; instead, she wisely avoids showing much of Stephanie being a bookstore owner. Instead, for the most part she is wined and dined by our fabulous Mr King here.
This is also where the author plays it smart: Stephanie isn’t a starry-eyed dolt. Instead, our heroine exhibits some moments of sanity rarely seen in her fellow romance heroines. For example, she insists that she is not going to rush into a relationship with King when she has just met him, and I want to stand up and applaud. She also doesn’t act like sex equates to a wedding proposal, and she also thinks and asks herself the right questions when it comes to her relationship with that guy.
Matthew King may be a billionaire, but he’s not the usual tired old alpha cruel bloke, which is another plus in my book. He’s nicer than most of his type, and he doesn’t draw out his own angst past its sell-by date. Therefore, this is one fantasy of being wooed by a wealthy hot dude done right in many ways.
Still, King is still on a predictable side, which is why at the end of the day I can’t muster up as much enthusiasm for it as I’d have liked. The subplot around Stephanie’s ex feels like an unnecessary addition that adds little to the story aside from giving our heroine an excuse to star in a rescue fantasy. The relationship between Stephanie and Matthew is fine as it is for the most part, there is no need to have him pull a rescue fantasy for Stephenie in that regard because our heroine for the most is doing fine by herself. The fact that she has to be reduced into a damsel in distress for some grand finale feels like a cheap and reductive regression of her character.
Oh well. I’m perfectly fine with this story, all things considered. It’s not the most exciting thing I’ve read, but it’s also far better than most stories that bear a similar premise. I’d file this one under “Worth a look”.
