Midnight Madness by Karen Kendall

Stereotypical and flat Blaze romance

2 stars

When the governor of Florida, Jack Hammersmith, sees a photograph of hairstylist Marly Fine in a magazine, he instantly knows that she is The One and so sets out to track her down.

Agreeing to cut his hair, Marly is stunned to arrive at the offices of the governor to find him shirtless – and gorgeous to boot. His playboy reputation is understandable and Marly isn’t immune to his charms or his kisses. Luckily she’s not his type but she hasn’t anticipated that politicians are the most persuasive people and Jack is determined to convince her to give them a go.

Despite looking forward to the slightly unusual premise of this book – in the end it just didn’t work for me. The author was clearly trying to make Jack an alpha male character but instead I felt he came across as a childish, annoying and at times, creepy guy. Marly was slightly better but she was still a very stereotypical ‘hippy’ character and I just couldn’t like her. The pair did have chemistry and the sex scenes were hot even if they had little emotion to them.

The other large failing of this book was the fact that it was often bogged down in politics. I have little interest in them, especially American politics, yet barely a page went by without one of the characters droning on about Democrats, Republicans and the stereotypes involved with both. I get the feeling that the fact the characters had differing politic viewpoints was supposed to be a source of conflict which I just didn’t understand.

For me, this book was a struggle to finish and I just can’t recommend it. Perhaps if you are a fan of Karen Kendall or if you like your romances with a political undertone then you might enjoy this – unfortunately it just wasn’t my cup of tea. 2 stars.