Review: To Katie with Love

To Katie with Love by Erica Lucke Dean
Genre: Romance, Chick-Lit
Pages: 225 (ebook)
Source:  Red Adept Publishing
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Buy it: Kindle | B&N

Description:

Banker Katie James has a serious thing for romance novels. She’d almost rather settle for a fictional boyfriend than risk her heart on a flesh-and-blood man. Besides, the only real guy she’s remotely interested in is her rich, unattainable client, the mysterious Cooper Maxwell. Looking less like the ultra-conservative man she knows and more like a drop-dead sexy character from one of her books, Cooper crashes Katie’s 29th birthday party. But one too many drinks lands Katie in uncharted territory… Cooper’s bedroom! Drunk on love, Katie dives headfirst into the relationship only to discover that Cooper is keeping secrets… dangerous ones. As if things couldn’t get worse, her meddling mother makes a surprise visit, digging up a whole new set of problems. Who would have guessed having an assassin for a boyfriend would be the least of her worries?

My Rating:

My Review:

Katie James finds the perfect guy in Cooper Maxwell.  He's handsome rich and has been secretly in love with her for a year.  Katie falls head-over-heels but soon finds that Cooper has too many secrets.  Getting few answers, she attempts to discover Cooper's secrets on her own leading to a few quirky situations.  Then Katie's mom shows up and adventures occur at work.

The best part of this read was the last 25 pages or so.  The rest was mildly entertaining at best and irritating at its worst.  My biggest issue is that it took till about page 100 for the conflict to pop up.  Until then we get lots of insta-love and a lot of back and forth where nothing really happens.  Characters run into each other, fall in love, and go to work (at least Katie does).  Even when Katie is at work, nothing really happens.  Things progress a little better as soon as Katie starts to wonder about Cooper's job.  The conclusions she jumps to is a bit flimsy for my taste.  The irritating mom component didn't entertain me either.  Or maybe the problem is that Cooper was too perfect and too nice that he didn't seem real.  I enjoyed the end because it was unexpected and liked that Cooper's secret was actually a reasonable secret.  I could understand why he needed to keep it a secret and I found his secret pretty fun.  For me, this read needed better character and plot development to make this one entertaining and remotely believable. Overall, the end prevented this from being a complete wash for me.