Overall: 🐢🐢
Storyline: ★★★
Writing Style: ★.5
Character Development: ★★.5
Enjoyment: ★★
“This time, I got a glimpse of how it would feel to truly lose you, and it’s a feeling I never want to experience ever again.”
A Tempting Distraction by Olivia Tasker
The Story:
Mina Lee
Impulsive, daring, and free-spirited, Mina Lee has every intention of living life on her own terms even if it means defying the demands set by her family that she must marry a man she doesn’t love no matter how attractive and pleasant he might be. Destined to inherit billions of her family’s empire, Mina has other plans than succumbing to her parents’ demands.
Bastien Thomas
Focused, ambitious, rigid, Bastien Thomas has no intention of becoming distracted and losing sight of the prize, especially the kind of distraction Mina Lee brings. Determined to become one of London’s most successful lawyers, his acceptance to the prestigious Oxford University comes with a lot of ultimatums and requirements. The ultimate being success at all costs.
She’s everything he should reject, simply because her mere presence makes him forget the reason behind his well-laid out plans. It should matter that her family has already chosen a husband for her or that they would never accept him as he is neither Asian nor of aristocratic wealth.
Yet he cannot deny the desire to have it all. The great love story as well as the successful career.
And she too cannot deny the impulse to follow her heart, even if it comes at the price of losing it all.
No matter how hard they try to resist, their forbidden, untamed desires are a temptation too great to deny. Will love cost them everything?
Key Elements:
Romance, London, College, Rich, Social Status, HEA, Friends with Benefits, Heiress, Oxford
More in The Series:
- Book 2: TBD
Why This Rating?
Full disclaimer, I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
This was a good story that just wasn’t executed with the best writing choices. And let me say that this whole book sounded like something I would really like to read. We have two individuals who sound like they are going to have some great chemistry. Which they did, once we got them in a one-on-one scenario. The romance that sparked was certainly HOT and great moments. It just seemed like there were a lot of huh? moments in the pages that took me away from enjoying the book to its fullest.
I appreciated the backstory that we are given for Bastian and the glimpse into a few months earlier for Mina. Backstories are what make or break characters for sure. Loved that we got them both up front and not a dramatic flashback chapter in the middles somewhere pointlessly. I got to go into the story knowing more about Bas and had a better connection with him. I’m not going to get into the messy plot Bas has though. He’s relationship/hatred/acceptance with his dad and the poor/rich attitude he bounces between as the story needs him gave me whiplash. I just accepted them as plot movers and went on with my day. As for Mina, we get most of her backstory info as the book progresses.
I do wish time was better defined. We get chapter one stating Bastian at age 10 and then after his chapters were done we just jump in time with no time prompt into Mina at age 18-19 at a party. There was very little context to go with to figure out when this was compared to the last two chapters we were reading. For a stretch of Mina’s chapter, I thought she was 19 at the time Bas was 10. Which I’m not shaming age-gap romance at all – I’ve read some amazing age-gap books! I was simply confused while trying to work out “when we are”. This happens a few times with us jumping time with nothing helping the reader out. We even jump scenes with little to no transitioning happening for the reader. You can get through the book without this holding you up since the skips are between bigger events for the most part. It just made me work harder for the story as it is currently.
Conversations staggered my reading hard and didn’t pace out well. They were actually taking me out of the story more than the time jumping did. It didn’t feel like a natural back and forth happening between anyone talking. One example is when we first meet Mina and she is at a party. She see a hot guy that she wants to hook up with and he clearly has hearts in his eyes for her. They exchange 3 lines – Mina – 1) nice party & Mina -2) wanna go someplace quite?, Lucas 1.) sure, want a drink?. Then she just blurts out to the guy, “I don’t do relationships”. Huh? No lead up, no internal monolog for the audience to hear what is happening in her head, just “Hey, we can do something, but it won’t lead anywhere in the future”. All because she can see that he was already thinking marriage and the whole kids/future.
We also just didn’t get to have some of the conversations. It was almost a fade-to-black moment for any conversation that was happening. We got a glimpse of individuals chatting but never what they were discussing. And these are own Main Characters talking to each other. This really bothered me. When the 2 MCs start talking about their relationship, it is just glossed over with a “they talked for awhile/hours”. There is no discussion that we see. No back and forth happening. No insight to their thoughts – or whoever it is we were supposedly looking through in that chapter. Nothing but a few of the broad highlights that are given to us in summary AFTER the whole entire conversation was completed. These are the moments that help give the readers character growth. Or at the very least, help the readers connect with the characters on a deeper level. These gloss over moments kept everyone at arms length and never let us experience their pain, love, tears, laughs.
The strongest and best writing that happens in this story are definitely the romantic moments. Turn up that spice meter everyone! Super Super good scenes. The writing was on point and we get well written moments leading into and after those smutty moments. If the author took the same time and application used in these section to the rest, we would have a very different outcome in quality. I would say that these scenes probably helped balm the larger grievances I had with the writing (time jumps, conversations, plot moments not agreeing). I can see the potential our author has in future stories. It will come in time with more writing and confidence, but it is certainly there.
Time to get lost in the next story!
