<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: 2-2.5 Star Entry in a Solid 3.5 Star Series
Review: Patrick's Destiny is the 4th book in a 5-book arc about 5 brothers who were separated as children when their parents abandoned the three oldest children to social services and took the twin 2-year old youngest brothers with them (Ryan's Place, Sean's Reckoning and Michael's Discovery are the first three and Daniel's Desire is due next month to wrap up the series). This book and the last book, Daniel's Desire deal with the twins who were taken by the parents. Of the whole series, in my opinion, the first book about oldest brother Ryan (Ryan's Place) is by far the best of the bunch (I rate it a solid 4.5 stars and my favorite Sherryl Woods book of all I have read), with Sean's story (3.5-4 stars) in second place and Michael's book in third (3-3.5 stars) (it seems the publishing order and my rating of them are in accord). Technically I would only give this book 2-2.5 stars but since Amazon.Com doesn't allow for half stars I would rather rate it a little better on the strength of the others books (and the hero who I did feel in tune with) than rate it lower, which I would have if this was a standalone book. Then again, this book definitely cannot stand by itself as it is part of a series which is both its biggest strength and bigger weakness.Part of the problem for me is that the story itself reads like a very rough first draft with rather disjointed ideas being worked in and no true fleshing out of the plot or some of the characters, which would be acceptable in a first draft but not in a published book. On the plus side, the hero (Patrick) is very much spot-on for me in the context of this story (and the whole series) and I really connected with him and his thoughts and feelings. On the minus side, the heroine (Alice) is just [dull]. She comes off as very shallow and two-dimensional and her character just feels completely unfinished and not thought out. Alice is also extremely unbelievable as a true love interest for the hero, which is a huge problem in a romance. Category romances by their very nature are not going for a pulitzer prize but many authors can pack quite a wallop in 250 pages or less and Sherryl Woods proved with the first book in this series, Ryan's Place, that she is very capable of delivering that wallop in both plotting and characterization. The biggest problem with Alice, to me, is that she is one of those beyond annoying heroines in category romances who sees the world through a very narrow, albeit semi-rose-colored glasses type view, and who never shows any growth at all during the story while the hero goes beyond his outline and actually makes you like and feel for them and believe, for the most part usually, that they truly grew during the story. I believe that relationships consist of give and take on BOTH sides and that both parties need to grow and adjust but Alice failed to live up to this as she continued on her own merry little path and with her beliefs and did all the taking in the relationship while Patrick wound up doing all the growing and giving. Another big problem is that I just cannot see any sparks at all between Patrick and Alice, which is surprising in view of the definite chemistry between the heroes and heroines of the first 3 books. The whole romance between Patrick and Alice just wasn't believable for me and therefore the majority of the book is unappealing. This is definitely not a book that I will re-read, though if I decide to keep the series I will keep it to round out the set. The secondary characters (including the appearances by Ryan, Sean and Michael) all seemed generally solid and I would have appreciated more of them and less of Alice. The only exception really being Patrick's twin, Daniel, whom at first glance I am not liking but I'm hoping that this goes away as I very much liked Molly (Daniel's love interest in his story next month) and look forward to what I *hope* will turn out to be a good story. I also hope that the resolution of the underlying plot doesn't fizzle out with a phony feeling happily ever after gloss over with some supposedly perfectly reasonable explanation for the abandonment by the parents and all being forgiven in a quick wrap-up. Since this is a continuation of an otherwise very solid series, I would recommend reading it so you can see how the overall story continues to unfold, but as a romance it is a complete failure.
Rating: 
Summary: EXCELLENT
Review: The Devaney story continues with Patrick. This was one of my favorite. Highly recommended.
<< 1 >>
| 
