Sandra Nicole, $0.99, ISBN 978-1005360672
Contemporary Romance, 2020
Raya Gamble kind of lives up to her name.
Who in the world was in there? What in the world had she done last night? Just as she reached the bathroom door, it swung open, and a tall, muscular man with bronze skin stood in it.
Raya pointed the gun and pulled the trigger; too bad she had forgotten to put bullets in it.
The man laughed at her; his hands raised in surrender.
“Whoa, so you wanna shoot me now?” He joked, lowering his hands and gently taking the gun from Raya.
“Who are you?” She asked, frowning.
“I’m Dave, remember. We met at the bar last night.”
That dumb twit could have killed the man she brought home the night before. This opening scene of Sandra Nicole’s The Love of a Mann has me wincing and a part of me hopes that the author would let me know that this kind of behavior is not normal. Instead, I’m told that Raya was in an abusive relationship before, and our heroine shot that fellow dead. So, I guess it’s… okay, I suppose, for her then to instinctively pull the trigger each time she sees some bloke in her place? If I were to accept that, then Raya is still an imbecile for forgetting the bullets. She can’t even get that crazy murderous woman act right.
Yay, no chance—I got unlucky in the “Let’s try an independent author new to me!” lottery again.
Raya is said to have her sad history and self-esteem issues keep her from pursuing her dreams of owning her own business, but I feel like a lack of brainpower may have something to do with that. Indeed, she spends far more time in this story fixated on being Mrs Xavier Mann.
Xavier Mann, our hero, once wanted to break up with his girlfriend because she moved in and started shifting the furniture, relocating various objects around the house, and throwing out Xavier’s things without telling him. Wait, so he moved in with my mother? Anyway, the girlfriend died and now Xavier will never love again. Sure, he never really got to break up with Rebecca before she died, so it’s not like she jumped off a balcony or something, but I suppose Xavier will take any reason to stick it to other women while claiming he’s too hurt inside to settle down with them. It’s a classic trick… wait, he’s serious? He’s not using that excuse to continue to sleep around with no strings attached?
The story jumps back and forth unnecessarily, with far more time spent on each character’s back story than on their present romance, when the latter is far more important in order to make the romance believable. The author’s prose needs a few more rounds of editing because reading the clumsily constructed sentences in this thing can be a rough experience. Worst of all, though, are the main characters that barely resemble actual human beings, with their ludicrous back stories that are ripped out of some of the most unbelievable entries in the “Am I the Asshole?” subreddit.
The only way The Love of a Mann could have worked is if the author had gone all out in bringing on the absurdity and turning the whole thing into a farce. Unfortunately, that will need a certain self-awareness about how ridiculous this story actually is, and the author hasn’t reached that state of enlightenment yet. Hence, no love for this baby tonight. Mamma’d rather get high.
