Accidentally Yours

-Susan Mallery-


In general I really enjoy this writer. She creates great characters, believable stories and her writing style is very easygoing and readable.

So that being said, there were things I really enjoyed about this book and one major thread I did not.

Kerri is desperate to find a cure for her son's terminal (made up, I think) disease, and she turns for research funds to Nathan King, a billionaire who lost his son to that same disease. When Nathan refuses her the funds, she has no problem indulging in a little blackmail to get the money if that is what is needed to save her son.

I really enjoyed the way the blackmail went on - it was generally presented in such a good humored way. Kerri needed the money, Nathan needed good publicity, so she forced him into a position where they both got what they want and was cheerfully unrepentant about doing so. Once it was fait accompli, and Nathan was forced out of the emotional retreat and lack of engagement with the world he had retreated into after his son's death and earlier tragedies in his life, Nathan also took the situation and stride and generally showed a willingness to grow and ultimately deal with his emotional hangups and issues that generally you don't see as readily in romance novels. There are usually more 'complicatations' before they get to that point.

The thread that I really had a problem with here was Kerri and the way she dealt with her son's illness, which was to take a total head in the sand approach with regards to the ultimate outcome (we are told it is a degenerative, terminal illness). I totally get wanting to believe and hope for a miracle, and wanting to give your kid hope and inspiration too, but the Wonder Mom stuff was just irritating to me the way it seemed to be more for Kerri than for Cody, and I really disliked that Kerri's attitude meant her son, in exruciating pain or so we are told, was left feeling guilty about potentially leaving her alone. Talk about a crappy burden to put on a kid who already has too much crap to deal with.

Anyway, after we go through the emotional turmoil of Kerri being forced to realize what is happening and what a burden she is putting on her child, of course, the researcher her blackmail funded pops up with a cure. I just felt like it was too easy and too abrupt. The whole story takes place in a matter of weeks, all we see of the researcher is some whinging about the pressures and how he can't find the cure fast enough, and then boom! All better.

It sounds liked I was rooting for the kid to die, which of course I was not, but the way the story presented the facts, the cure and the subsequent 'miracle' of Cody's survival felt like they weren't earned, but just thrown in so as not to spoil the happily ever after.

I think the moral of the review may possibly be that kids with painful terminal illnesses and romance novels are a hard, if not impossible, combination to get right.