Kimani, $6.50, ISBN 978-0-373-86449-2
Contemporary Romance, 2016
Tayler Carter, career woman and all, needs a break. Her friend suggests that Tayler head over to the rustic B&B of her cousin, the Coleman House Bed & Breakfast. And so she does, only to flap around like a duck out of water. You see, her friend neglects to tell her that the B&B runs a working farm tour, so our heroine has to wake up at an ungodly hour to do farm ranch stuff. Oh, isn’t that hilarious?
Some suspension of disbelief is needed here. You have to imagine that a good friend will be “so kind” as to dump her friend in a place out of nowhere and never warn the city girl about the “fun” things she is about to do. And that she’d love to see her friend get both legs up over that cousin – and everyone else, even other guests in the B&B, does too, because what are secondary characters for, aside from being sequel baits and creepy cheerleaders straight out of Rosemary’s Baby? “You must shag this man and bear the devil’s seed… ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!” Wait, wrong movie.
Also, it is perfectly acceptable for the management to set up a paying guest and then has everyone else laugh at her when she flounders. No wonder our hero Rollin Coleman feels that the B&B is just a white elephant bleeding away the family money. I wonder what the reviews at TripAdvisor are like. Perhaps it’s a good guy that the guy is so hot that the polar ice caps threaten to melt at the sight of him.
If you can get over the initial premise and the rather tired rehash of yet another city girl screaming at the sight of a snake and other rather played out clichéd moments, you may find that, for the most part, When I Fall in Love is a pretty enjoyable romance, thanks to the sizzling chemistry and combustible sexual moments between the two main characters. These elements make an otherwise predictable and very familiar romance stand out, and the heroine being a refreshingly normal heroine without too many weird “career woman” neuroses only make things more enjoyable here. The conflicts between these two characters can be exasperating at times because the hero can be such a stubborn mule – then again, he is a rancher, and you know that stereotype, I’m sure, so I shouldn’t be surprised.
I just wish the rest of the story outside the bedroom plays out in a little less familiar manner. As it is, the sex is just fine, the main characters are likable even if the hero can be quite the predictable stock rancher dude sort, and the whole thing is a perfectly pleasant read. I just wish that it doesn’t feel so much like so many stories that I’ve read before.
