Katie Ashley, $0.99, ISBN 978-1005269432
Contemporary Romance, 2017
In a time when most Americans seem to have gone mad over politics, with each side screaming that the other side is ushering the apocalypse, I do wonder whether it is wise to release a series set amidst a political backdrop. Fortunately, I’m not American, so I can still enjoy something of this nature without screeching “Orange Man Bad!” or “Let’s Go Brandon!” every few minutes.
Katie Ashley’s Running Mate is the first in the series of the same name, and fortunately or unfortunately depending on how one looks at it, it makes it pretty clear that there are no real life politics intruding into this fantasy. Unfortunately, for me at least, this one seems to have been written by an AI that scrapes tropes and scenes from bestselling romance titles to be clumped together on the pages. From small things such as the story opening with the heroine running because she’s late only to trip because she’s wearing heels, to the big things such as this one being yet again about some playboy needing to have a fake engagement for political reasons.
In this case, the only difference is that, instead of running for office himself, Barrett Callahan is in a fake engagement to clean up his image and help his father win the throne. What happens when such a deception is revealed rarely comes into play, because everyone forgives the deception when it involves two hot people. Our heroine is Addison and, predictably enough, she has a lot of loans so she needs the money that is offered to play the fake fiancée—she’s not doing this for the love of money, so don’t hate her, people.
Oh, and she’s had a bad relationship so she now needs everyone to tell her over and over how hot, sexy, and lovable she is.
Also, for someone working in DC, Addison also loves to complain about how terrible everyone is there, et cetera, until she meets Barrett and all of a sudden, he’s okay because he makes her experience the need to launder her underwear ASAP. Then again, our heroine has no ambition or personality, just a background fleshed out just enough to allow her to have the played-out issues about love and what not, She exists solely to be the hero’s love pillow, so I guess a personality isn’t necessary for that purpose.
Likewise, despite showing Barrett to be all about the sexy in the opening scene that introduces him (have to show readers how good the hero is in bed, after all), the author has Barrett insisting that he is not really a male ho, and he’s playing along only because he wants to stay employed in Daddy’s company and all he wants in his whole life is Daddy’s approval.
The two main characters have no personalities, just issues and excuses to make them do the things they do without Addison coming off as too slutty and Barrett as too mercenary. Sure, what they are doing is deceiving people in America for the selfish reason to making Daddy the President, but that is okay because… well, just because.
Addison’s first thought is oh no, what happens should she fall for him. On the other hand, he’s like, well, the whole thing will be over once Daddy wins the throne, so whatever. They are basically That Guy and That Gal that I can find in way too many romance stories, right down to the stereotypical portrayal of her feelings and motivations against his.
Oh, and Daddy wins the Presidency despite engineering a great deception to fool the electorate. Well, don’t complain. It’s always okay when the people involved are the lead characters in our favorite romance novels!
I can’t do it, I can’t enjoy Running Mate, because it is so much like a robot-made story that cobbles together every single tired, overused trope and cliché out there. Even the sex scenes feel like they were written after careful analysis of those scenes in the bestselling Kindle titles, right down to the unintentionally hilarious scene of the hero stumbling upon the heroine fervently touching herself down there.
Everything about this thing looks like it is running to be the poster book of something one can write after binge-watching those “How to Earn Millions by Writing a Kindle Bestseller in Two Days!” webinars. Well, good for the author if this thing made her millions of dollars, but I’m out of luck as I’m hoping for something more… creative. Still, it’s good for her to charge me only $0.99 for something as made-by-committee as this thing. I’d be crushed if I had paid more for it!
