Book Description
He needs someone to work with his son, she needs a job. They need to keep their hands to themselves.
Welcome to Seattle, the Emerald City and home to The Single Dads of Seattle. Ten sexy single fathers who play poker every Saturday night, have each other’s backs, love their children without quarter, and hope to one day find love again. This is Mark’s story …
Single Dad of Seattle Dr. Mark Herron can’t believe anyone would celebrate their divorce. The dissolution of his marriage left him and his son with a huge hole to fill in their home–and their hearts. So when he overhears a lovely stranger and her friends celebrating the end of her marriage, he’s mystified–and then intrigued–by her determination to put the past behind her. But when he learns that Tori Jones needs a job, he knows this can’t be a coincidence.
Tori might be telling the world nothing’s got her down, but the truth is she’s hit rock bottom. Her husband didn’t just cheat on her, he took all her money, including her college fund, which means her marriage is over, and so is her dream to go to grad school and help children with special needs. So when a handsome stranger offers her a job caring for his special needs son, she knows she can’t turn it down–
Even if what she’s feeling for Mark is far from professional. Now Mark’s finding it hard to keep his hands to himself and Tori’s struggling to keep her thoughts from straying to dangerous territory. Will they be able to keep their distance from each other or will being hired by the sexy single dad be Tori’s biggest problem of all?
**Note: This book can be read as a standalone. It includes lots of steamy scenes, cursing, and of course as with all my books, this has an HEA and no cliffhanger or cheating. If you like single dads who take charge, this book is for you.
Author Profile
A Canadian West Coast baby born and raised, Whitley is married to her high school sweetheart and together they have two beautiful daughters and a fluffy dog. She spends her days making food that gets thrown on the floor, vacuuming Cheerios out from under the couch and making sure that the dog food doesn’t end up in the air conditioner. But when the kids are at school and it’s not quite wine o’clock, Whitley sits down, avoids the pile of laundry on the couch, and writes.
Non-review Rant
I’ve not posted any book review since December 2022 (yes, I checked). I have been trying to focus on generating diverse content on my blog, other than drama reviews, and posting book reviews has been in the radar for a couple of months.
For now, it will be one-book-review-per-month. When I finally decided to post a book review for July 2023, my kindle unlimited subscription had expired, and my card didn’t work, so I had to find a free book.
I typed “Free sweet romance book” and downloaded two, because it didn’t have any naked people on the cover. Mind you, I didn’t even read the blurb, and I kinda regretted it later.
Now, let’s get to the book.
Recap
The story is about Tori, who has just been kicked out by her husband, the husband who she put through college by working three jobs, the husband who cheated on her, the husband who took all her money. That shows us just how vulnerable and how heroic our heroine is (I like what I did there).
The story is also about Mark, a doctor, a divorcee with son autistic Gabe. The two meet in a bar where Tori is kinda forced to celebrate her impending divorce. Mark is intrigued, talks to Tori and is smitten. But, he doesn’t want to act on his impulse. Mark needs someone to look after Gabe, and Tori needs a job. So, that leads to a nice working condition.
Tori is like a magician in dealing with kids, and is an instant hit with Gabe. The story follows Tori and Mark’s growing attraction towards each other, until they finally concede to their animalistic desires. The final conflict is their falling out, and then the happily ever after.
Review
I’m going to go with a list, because lists are so handy.
1. Long Chapters
The first thing I noticed was that the book has really long chapters, so long that I read only one chapter on day 1. I was quite exhausted by the chapter.
2. Too Many Characters
Even though I hadn’t read the full title, or the book description, or the series name, the story itself conveys enough that there will be a series, one for each of the character that we meet. The novel also gives a sense of what the series is going to be about – single divorced dads. While this works well for a series setup, reading about those many single dads was overwhelming. Really!
Also, the first chapter talked about Tori and her friends, only one of them was named-Mercedes. Mercedes didn’t show up again until chapter 15, which was kinda weird, given that we saw a lot of Mark’s friends.
3. Not Sweet at All
This one is on me because I didn’t read the book description and completely missed the trigger warning. This book is steamy AF. Also, since the chapters are long, it makes a large portion of the book. Thankfully, though, the steam is concentrated in chapters, and all I had to do was to skip through 4 chapters.
4. Gabe, “buddy!”
Both Mark and Tori keep talking to Gabe without his name. It kinda got to my nerves. If I search now, there are only 19 occurrences, but that still felt like a lot while reading. Also, Gabe is the best character in the book, with his autism and tantrums and all. I wish there was more of him. At the same time, he reminded me of Sebastian from the movie The Switch. Wasn’t he adorable?
5. Couldn’t Sympathize with the Main Characters
As I mentioned in the previous point, Gabe is the best character in the book. It also means that both Tori and Mark came across as just bleh. I couldn’t sympathize with either of them, and at some point or the other, I was also annoyed by them. The conflict, in particular, felt like both are wrong. I didn’t like how Tori handles the situation with her ex and how Mark blamed everything on Tori for no fault of hers. Correction, she was at fault, but Mark did went overboard. I mean, he was scared of committment and blamed it all on Tori.
6. The Narrative
At many points, the dialogues were difficult to read, and also didn’t make sense in the context. I often kept wondering, “who talks like that?” But I guess I could partly blame that for not reading any English novel completely in the past few months. I have DNF so many novels, I can’t even begin to tell.
7. Autism
There was a time when I read about a dyslexic old man in Peer-e-Kaamil and boy did I cry my eyes out. It was scary, and emotional, but mostly scary. Reading about Gabe and autism hit me just as hard. I often tend to think that I’m not the best looking, not the sharpest person. But reading these books grounds me. I’m so thankful to be a perfectly average person.
Overall, this was an okay book. This is just the beginning. Let’s see if I can keep my schedule of posting at least one book review a month.
And that was the review.
Shabana Mukhtar