Deborah Grace Staley, $1.93, ISBN 978-0463003893
Contemporary Romance, 2017

Why is this thing called Ridden? Is it because the guy on the cover, our hero AJ Johnson, is a power bottom that can take it all in, regardless of dimension? Is it instead a reference to the heroine Maddie Greene being the town bicycle? Since this thing is cheap, I figure I may as well invest in Deborah Grace Staley’s magnum opus to find out the answer.

Maddie Greene left town some 20 years ago to flee an abusive relationship, but there are some silver linings to her story since. She’s done well for herself since, as she has a successful financial firm and a fabulous penthouse, and her kids have survived long enough to attend college.

As you can probably guess, she returns to her hometown of Hidden Harbor because her parents decided to run off for a long holiday, leaving Maddie the rundown house of Maddie’s late grandmother for our heroine to do whatever she wants with it.

Maddie’s few fond memories of Hidden Harbor was her times spent at that house, so she decides to drive back there and, while she’s there, why not be a judge in the Apple Festival Queen pageant? She was a former winner, and they had written to her every year since to invite her to come back there. Her own business these days are running well without her direct intervention, and her kids are away, so this could be a nice way to get rid of the empty nest blues.

Oh, and back there is a bad boy, AJ, that will tempt Maddie to forget her common sense and rekindle her weakness for bad boys.  He has a tattoo, of course, and if I were to judge by the cover, it’s the same tattoo that every other bad boy on covers of similar stories would sport. He has a bike too.

Interestingly, he and Maddie went to school together, and back then, he played by the rules. What did that get him? His crush Maddie ended up with some asshole while he was away for his freshman year in college, and then 9/11 happened and he developed PTSD from that. He’s now going to live by his own rules, so there.

Right off, there are two characters that are in many a subversion of popular hero and heroine archetypes. Maddie isn’t a flailing dingbat with a failing business, while AJ actually has some deep-seated issues, not some overblown drama about how some ex didn’t give him enough hugs.

In many ways, this one has many of the more tiresome tropes of contemporary romances today, but they also make sense in a way. The two characters sharing their life history to one another shortly after their first meeting works here because they’re former classmates so it’s logical that they want to catch up on things. The two characters quickly rush into bringing on the sexy, yes, but then again, there’s no reason for Maddie to play coy and simper around for a man to make the first move. She is, after all, a woman that knows what she wants.

Hence, I actually want to love Ridden. The two characters are likable and their relationship has its share of feels and poignant moments, after the sex scene is out of the way and they start connecting with one another on a more emotional level. The secondary characters all seem to have their place and roles in this story, and they aren’t just here to sell more books. There are many elements here that would have made this one an emotional, probably incredible read.

So what happened? This story needs to go on longer. At its current length, AJ’s abrupt “I’m leaving you now because… angst!” antic toward the end of the story feels more like a rushed contrivance to create some last minute drama, instead of a natural progression of his PTSD that makes him wary of forming relationships with other people. That aspect is also resolved in a pretty rushed manner, with everyone making speeches and carrying out dramatic proclamations in fast forward speed.

I feel that this story may feel more well developed if the author had kept going for a while longer. Maybe let these characters explore their feelings further, and let Maddie discovers the true extent of AJ’s inner demons in a more gradual manner.

In its current form, the characters rush into bed, and the author also rushes the story to a conclusion, as if she noticed the time while writing the late third act and realized that she had a bus to catch or something.

Therefore, while there are some really good things about this story—and I like it because of this—the end result is not as well put-together as I’d have liked. If this had been a chicken, I’d say it’s under-cooked and should be put back into the oven for a little longer.