Maddox Brothers Book 1
After the angst and turmoil that was Abby and Travis, we move on to the rest of the Maddox brothers.
First up is Trenton Maddox, a tattoo artist who dropped out of college following the death of his girlfriend in a car accident. He’s been crushing on Camille Camlin, who works at the local bar to pay for her studies. However, she’s in a long distance relationship with another guy, yet is undeniably attracted to Trenton.
I felt both characters lacked depth. I wanted to really get into their heads a bit more, but instead the author spent too much time on secondary characters and their drama. For example, we get very little regarding the impact of Trenton’s car accident and the death of his girlfriend. Like many things in this book, it is skimmed over and left me frustrated.
Cami is treated as the black sheep of her family and blamed for everything that goes wrong. She’s even blamed for the behaviour of her violent father and enabling mother. Even when her brothers try to linflict their will upon Cami, the author deals with it off the page rather than from Cami’s point of view. I would have loved to see her put them all in their place, but again it’s skimmed over and left me crying out for more details.
The main conflict between Cami and Trenton revolves around this other guy. The relationship is not working out how Cami would like, but she fights the persistent draw to Trenton. The author spins a mystery around the other guy’s identity. I’m not going to spoil it, but it’s kind of obvious. The reveal doesn’t happen until the very last sentence of the book. This secret is the source of the angst throughout the story and when Trenton finds out, it’s just brushed over as though it’s not a big deal at all. It left me thinking that whole aspect of the story was pointless.
I can’t even say the story was salvaged by some spicy scenes. It’s very much a slow burn romance and I would have preferred more heat.
On the whole it was a nice read, if a bit lacking in depth and heat. Plus, the ending really tainted my feelings about Abby and her actions in Beautiful Disaster.
Plot: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Feels: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Heat: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
