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Beyond the Pale*

Potentially Good Story Ruined by Excess Profanity and Abrupt End

I enjoy a lot of different types of romance novels. I will admit that it took me a little longer to warm up to the contemporary romance field, especially as it is written today in this wide-open, anyone-can-publish book marketplace created by Amazon and perpetuated with other online booksellers. I actually love that new authors have a chance to publish as they never could have before. An unfortunate side effect is that indie books aren’t always of the same quality as traditionally published works. The bar is lowered because there are no gatekeepers.

Anyway, back to this book. I don’t mind angsty romance. I usually like a second chance romances and don’t mind love triangles if they are well written. Unfortunately, in the case of this book, I found myself completely turned off by the profanity. That is one of my problems with contemporary romance and other modern novels; I just do not believe that heavy profanity is needed in any book, and it is a major turnoff for in any novel. I found myself very distracted by it. I wish the author had stated in the book description that this level of profanity was used (over 50 F-bombs), and I would have skipped the book completely.

The story itself had some twists and turns, some expected and some not, but the author did not reveal who the woman would choose until the very literal end of the book. Honestly, I just dislike that about a book, too. Something needs to follow the answer to the primary question besides just a tease about the next book in the series. The story needs time to breathe and wind down for it to feel like the promise of the book has been fulfilled.

I think this book had potential because the characters and their story were interesting. I did enjoy the weaving back and forth between the present time and when they were younger. I just couldn’t get beyond their profanity and the unsatisfying ending.

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