Delancey Stewart, $4.99, ISBN 978-1-956195-08-8
Contemporary Romance, 2022

Sometimes, I wonder: is it truthful to call a story “military romance” when the hero—it’s almost always the hero—is actually ex-military? Will Cruz is a former pilot. Then again, maybe one can say that you can take a dude out of the military, but you can’t take the military out of him.

Anyway, yes, in Delancey Stewart’s Only a Fling, Will Cruz is wealthy. There, there is no need for readers to worry that the fellow may have to depend on welfare or something, because once again, remember the golden in romance: no romance without finance.

In this one, Will’s father owns a construction company that specializes in “luxury projects”, so Will’s first gig post-pew pew is to help oversee one of his dad’s construction projects.

Mind you, he won’t be the boss of that project. That would be the no-nonsense tough-as-nails foreman Markie, a lady that has all the tough guys running scared of her because she’s scary and frighteningly competent. Oh, I like this kind of heroine…

Oh wait, she’s not the heroine.

That will be Lucy. Also, two chapters down, Will resigns from his father’s company.

Wait, wait, what is going on here? Why even have the first chapter about Will taking on his father’s project then? If that one were meant to highlight Will’s supposedly complicated relationship with his demanding father, surely there is a way that won’t seem like the author just changing her mind early on and abruptly swerving the story into a completely different direction.

Back to the story, Lucy is in construction, and Will joins her father’s company and hence her crew. As one can imagine, sparks and items of clothing will soon fly all over the place.

Well, the good things about this story are:

• The author’s narrative style is bouncy, fun, and infectious.
• The characters are for the most part likable and down to earth despite being traditional wealthy nepobaby stereotypes.
• There is discernible chemistry between the two leads.
• Conversations feel natural and flow like how one would imagine people in real life would speak.
• Secondary characters, including sequel baits, feel like organic parts of the scenery instead of awkward advertisements.

All of these sound good, but there is one annoying issue that I have with this one as well. The whole thing is plotted by someone that seems to either enjoy taking their story off-kilter and into all kinds of tangents and directions because they are bored, or someone that does all of this by accident.

There is a treasure hunt down the road, making me feel like I’m a kid again, reading all of those kiddie investigator stories by Enid Blyton and all those ghostwriters that did those Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew stories.

Then that sort of falls into the background and off the tracks as the author decides to write instead about the day by day exciting adventures of people in construction, and so forth.

Honestly, the author doesn’t allow me to settle down and enjoy whatever she is doing, because I only have to blink and then the story is running off to somewhere else.

Furthermore, the author will often build up a scene, and then, when things are starting to happen, she just cuts straight to the aftermath, with characters telling one another what took place prior instead of letting me experience the whole thing myself.

Delancey Stewart is like a cab driver speeding me to my destination instead of letting me enjoy the ride. Wonder what the rush is about…

Also, because this is one of those current year romances where any self-respecting alpha male will show his utter domination over the heroine by completely erasing her name and forcing his own nickname of her onto her, Will starts telling Lucy and me that the heroine’s new name is now Firecracker. Seriously? Have we run out of actually entertaining nicknames to erase the heroine’s identity with?

It gets worse when Lucy in his presence regresses into being a pouting, foot-stomping “I hate him! But I’m hot for him! Ooh!” brat that gets an intellectual and capability downgrade just so that Will can pretend to be smarter and more capable than he probably is.

All in all, Only a Fling is a competently executed story that still manages to be unsatisfying and unremarkable. I’m actually impressed, even if it’s for the wrong reasons.