Gianni Rinaldi is
intrigued by a woman he meets unexpectedly. Then a journal filled with a
woman's most intimate fantasies falls into his hands. The wealthy
entrepreneur pursues Leah Ivers, thinking she might be the author of a
journal he has become obsessed with. At first, his goal is to determine
if she wrote the sexual fantasies in the diary. But the way Gianni and
Leah respond to each other takes the relationship deeper, and both get
more than they expect.
“It was as if he saw her clearly even at a distance, and the electricity that radiated between them was undeniable.”
“It was as if he saw her clearly even at a distance, and the electricity that radiated between them was undeniable.”
I picked this boxed set out a couple of months ago and I was so excited to dive into Gianni and Leah's story. I had heard from a couple of people that it was a really good series, so I was super interested to see what all of the buzz was about.
From when I first picked this book up, I thought that it felt rushed. It didn't feel like the plot was given enough breathing room to really grow into something. I thought at first that it was me and I was just reading it too quickly (which is a massive issue of mine), so I went ahead and restarted the book after I was about 30 pages in. I was just curious if I would get the same feel. And I did. it still felt rushed and the further I got into the first book, it seemed to just get worse.
The conversations also felt forced between Gianni and Leah. I don't know why but they just didn't come across as realistic because they were so stiff. I could see why people really liked these two characters but I didn't get that magnetism from them that I had heard so much about. Nothing was tying me to these characters. I didn't feel close to them and I wasn't drawn to them in any way.
Throughout the entire first book, all I could think was "50 Shades, 50 Shades, 50 Shades". For some reason, I couldn't get that book out of my head while I was reading this one. That's not a good thing. It was probably because Gianni is a wealthy dude and he likes being in control. Which is the entire plot line for 50 Shades of Grey. This one isn't quite on that level of erotica but it still ran in a similar direction and that kind of turned me off of the whole series. Who am I kidding. It really turned me off. I just couldn't get into it after my first 50 thought. And the sad thing is that the diary part was so good!! I love how she lost her diary and he found it ... such a good idea for a book.
In the end, it just wasn't for me. I wish that it had been. This ended up being one of the few dozen books that I'll buy this year and I really hate it when a book I pay for isn't something that I enjoy but it's always a crap-shoot to read a new-to-me author. I'm in the minority on this one, lots of others have really enjoyed the series. It was just not fleshed out enough for me, the characters weren't mind-blowing and it ran parallel to another book. Three strikes!
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