Phenomenal One Press, $1.99, ISBN 978-0-9850251-6-8
Contemporary Romance, 2013
I assume that LM Preston’s Thundering Luv is some kind of mermaid or selkie romance, but alas, it turns out to be a strictly young adult thing. Yes, it’s true people: never judge a book by its cover.
This is definitely a young adult thing because we have a heroine with a name like Jewel Depree, and she can be quite melodramatic about things.
The sea. The beautiful sea in front of Jewel couldn’t evoke any depth or feeling within her heart. Maybe what they called her at school was true. Ice Princess, cold-blooded and frozen faker. She fought against tearing up at all the things she knew to be true. She couldn’t feel, couldn’t love, was only a pretty face with nothing in between. The large beach home that shared a wraparound deck and a middle wall with a neighbor had seen better days. It was perfect, a temporary escape from all the drama at home. And she needed an escape, more than anyone knew.
All the hot buys throw themselves at her—said scrumptious boyfriend is actually her fifth one this year—and she can’t feel love for them one bit, so oh god, this is like, heart cancer or something and it’s so so bad, people, so bad.
Okay, if you are thinking that while making the sign of the cross and wearing ropes of garlic around your neck at this moment, you are just as bad as the hero, Colin, who bumps into her during her beach side R&R and decides to take her down a peg or two for being a snotty love-’em-dump-’em diva.
Thing is, Jewel puts on a front because what she knows about love is pretty messy. Her father left her and her mother, and her mother has a succession of awful loser boyfriends. They are both also trying to keep people from knowing that they may be losing their home soon due to all those bills that they couldn’t pay. This is why our heroine seeks an escape.
The rest of the story is predictable: they fall in love, she finds someone that she thinks can fully understand her, he discovers that she’s not what he thinks she is and in fact an adorable darling. Oh, what will happen when the inevitable “You got close to me just to do… what?” drama comes on?
Despite the lack of surprises in this one, I am pleasantly delighted by how readable it is. The author’s narrative style is very easy to read, and even when her characters are dumping exposition via their dialogues, the whole thing feels pretty natural and organic. Nothing here feels particularly stilted or contrived.
The characters, while being very familiar archetypes, are also easy to like. Colin isn’t that big a jerk or ass here; he turns out to be alright despite his initial intentions when it comes to the heroine.
My issue with this one is a personal, subjective thing: I find it, especially the last few pages, way too sappy and melodramatic for my liking. The last few pages see everyone talking like they are sobbing and hugging on a talk show about families and love, and I have to suppress a shudder while reading about these things. I’m more into darker kinds of melodrama, so the amount of sap in this one can become too sweet and cloying for my liking.
Still, I manage to like this one despite wincing at certain scenes now and then, so hats off to the author for that.
