Amanda Jayde, $2.99
Contemporary Romance, 2016
Maybe it’s COVID-19 cabin fever, or maybe I’m an old ho that had read everything and anything when it comes to the romance genre, but Amanda Jayde’s The Second Time Around just leaves me shrugging.
I don’t recall the heroine’s last name, just Jasmine, so I guess maybe she’s one of the cool, hot ladies that only need a first name, or maybe, she’s not important enough to have much of a personality beyond “needy for penetration and validation”. Five years ago, Jasmine hooked up with Chayton Baker for two weeks. He’s the hero, so not only he is important enough to have a last name, he also has a nickname, “Falcon”. At any rate, it was the best sex ever, and today, she is still have hot dreams about him and seriously, she needs his big, throbbing, er, love and respect for her brain to be inside her 24/7.
Don’t laugh. Wonder Woman pined after a dead bloke for centuries, apparently never finding any other worthy bloke to test her lasso on, and that movie was directed and co-scripted by a self-professed feminist. Clearly, it is now a trait of progressive, strong feminist women to be unable to move past a bloke that they had met for a few weeks.
Basically, she goes to an island resort for some R&R, and I’m sure you will never guess whom she bumps into, and onto, and under, and above.
That’s basically the story. This is actually a category-length story, and it’s how about these two reconnect again, both in body and soul. I’m happy that they are together again, but at the same time, this is also something I’ve read way too many times before. The story, the characters, their romance—everything feels so done before. I can’t muster much enthusiasm for the two main characters because they are perfunctory rehashes in many ways. What little internal conflict present here is Jasmine going all eeeee and eeeek about being in a permanent relationship, something that is hard to buy because she spends all of her time up to that point acting more like someone that can barely function unless she and Falcon’s penis are permanently on a rock-solid connection. Falcon seems so perfect and gagging for Jasmine’s honey, so I have a hard time believing why these two would ever drift apart in the first place. Their initial break-up comes off like a contrivance to jump start this story.
In the end, there is nothing particularly bad about The Second Time Around. At the same time, it’s like I’m reading this one the second thousandth time around, and it offers nothing new or interesting to keep me from yawning and wishing that I’m reading something far more interesting.
