Alison's Reviews > Desperate

I've got to be honest I have absolutely NO idea why I liked this.

Katerina Winter appears to be allergic to the word "had", in almost every instance where it should have been used she uses "has" which reads very badly. She also uses "reigns" when she means "reins" and on a couple of other occasions she uses what appears to be completely the wrong word.

Added to which the 'hero' is plain mean and towards the end practically rapes the heroine, it's certainly hate sex.

And then, the heroine is broke, she has no savings, she is having to share a house with her best friend's soon-to-be ex-husband and act as his glorified maid (well there is no glorified about it). She gets a job as a manager at Starbucks and within weeks she has enough money for breast reduction surgery. Not a car, to replace the one which broke down, not a deposit on a place of her own, but cosmetic surgery. Sheesh!

But I liked it, go figure!

This is kind of a riff on the old Pride and Prejudice trope. Salene Agnew is allegedly calm, gracious and collected, I say allegedly because I didn't really see that. Down on her luck after losing her job, she goes to see if she can stay with her best friend for a while only to discover that her best friend has left her husband after only a few months of marriage. Said husband, Gabriel Breslin, and Salene actively dislike each other. Gabriel thinks Salene is a snobby bitch, Salene thinks Gabriel is a trust fund rich boy who hasn't had to work for anything.

Although Gabriel is spiteful and laughs at Salene's misfortune he can't let a woman sleep in her car in a car park or stay in the local roach motel (although, thinking about it, if he lives in an up-market area of Dallas why would there be a roach motel nearby rather than a nice hotel?) so he lets her sleep in the guest room in return for her cooking him breakfast in the morning.

Gabriel's views on women appear to be stuck somewhere in the 1950s, although his so-called courtesy doesn't extend to speaking politely to them it seems. He offers to let Salene stay in the guest room if she cleans the house and cooks for him. Soon he is drawing favourable comparisons between Salene and his ex-wife who, it turns out, was a gold-digging narcissist.

So, I would have given it four stars but I knocked off one star for the awful grammar and the obnoxious behaviour of Gabriel.