A matter of choice – Nora Roberts | The Opinionated Woman's Musings

Synopsis

James Sladerman (Slade) is a detective sergeant that was picked for an undercover assignment to look after the Commissioner of Police goddaughter. Her antiques business is suspected of being part of an international smuggling ring. Since he is a writer, his guise is that he is going to stay at her house temporarily to do some writing.

Jessica Winslow is the daughter of a prominent New England family and is oblivious to the fact that someone is using her business to smuggle illegal goods. The suspect is someone she trusts and her life is soon to be in danger because of it.

Opinion

This is one of my least favorite books by Nora Roberts.

Jessica’s main fault was that she was so dumb and oblivious to all the signs that someone she trusted betrayed her.

As hard as I tried, I did not like Slade. Slade was so bitter over everything.

It was as if he was mad at the world-

mad because he had to take care of his family and could not work in a job he liked
mad because his novel had not been sold
mad because Jessica’s family was rich
mad because he was attracted to Jessica
mad because he had to protect her when he wanted to be far away from her

This comment from Jessica sums it up, “ I realize you might think differently, but you don’t go to hell for being kind.”

I cannot understand how or why Jessica fell in love with Slade. He was sullen or yelling at her most of the time. Even when he declared his love, he sounded angry about it.

His attitude killed the romance for me.

Additionally, consent in this book was not straightforward enough for me.

“ ‘No. This isn’t what I want’

Yes, yes it is, her eyes told him even while her hands pushed him away”.

Ick. I am more sensitive to this issue because so many women get raped when they say no, but the attacker says that they were saying yes with their body.

I do not care what signals a man thinks her body is giving him. If a woman says “no”, then the man should stop.

Should you buy? Only if you are a die hard Nora Roberts fan and have to read every book she has published. Otherwise, pass on this one. It is dark, the heroine is dense, and the hero has too many issues.