Kimani, $6.25, ISBN 978-0-373-86241-2
Contemporary Romance, 2012
Haley Feldon is all about helping humanity, working through the organization she founded, the International Institute for Social Progress (IISP), to heal the world and make it a better place. Alas, the constant need to stroke egos and kiss the asses of people who have the money to sponsor the IISP’s projects are making her feel pretty jaded about life. She also had an unhappy experience with romance, so she’s not initially keen on welcoming hero Jon Ecklund’s amorous affections with open arms. On his part, Jon owns a satellite network, and this is an important distinction to distinguish him from the other Billionaire Player Hot Guys out there that populate the Kimani line. So, they want to do the deed, schmooze the schnozzle, hanky the panky, and all that.
And that’s about it to this story. To prolong everyone’s enjoyment so that the book can clock in more than 100 pages, the author pads the story with slow-paced scenes of our main characters hanging out with friends from past and future books. These many secondary characters play essential roles in this story: they are the unpaid shrinks to our hero and heroine. Apart from that silly guy who suspects for no good reason that Haley is a money-grubbing ho (hey, we need a pretense of a conflict), everyone else gathers around to tell our hero and heroine that they are right for each other and they are so obviously in love, just like how everyone who already has their books are so in love with everyone else.
And really, love, love, love. These people talk a lot about love, so much so that they are like psychologists who can’t stop working after office hours. They all sound alike too, as if they are indistinguishable mouthpieces for the author to babble about finer feelings and lovely magical love. Haley and Jon are incapable of making their own decisions – they have to talk to these secondary characters, who will proceed to offer advice that these characters naturally ignore as there is still some way to go before the book can end.
A more accurate title for Reckless Seduction would be Sedated Half-Hearted Seduction. This story is like a hamfisted script for a Hallmark TV show set to the pace of barely conscious hippopotamuses trying to run a marathon. I’m actually surprised I managed to stay awake to reach the last page of this book.
