Only You

Only You Francis Ray Grade: C+ Sensuality: Warm The "bones" to this story are better than my grade reflects.

The basic premise and grown-up lead characters work well, but the author over-emphasized the trappings of wealth, created a set of brothers for the heroine so over-protective they could have been in a European Historical, and occasionally wrote in such a stilted fashion that it pulled me out of the story every time.

The matriarch of the Grayson family has already managed to marry off four sons. She's got her eye set on her daughter now, the baby of the family. The beautiful, intelligent, and independent Sierra, though, would like to find her own husband, thank you very much. She's not exactly in search of a husband because she's trying to build her real estate business, but when she meets the handsome, intelligent, and ruthless Blade Navarone at a charity auction, it seems she might do both at once.

The two "meet cute," as AAR reviewer Sandy Coleman might say. Sierra steps in for a new sister-in-law, who was set to be auctioned off for dinner at a charity event. Once Blade sees her, she knows he's going to be the highest bidder, even if he himself doesn't do the bidding. $30,000 dollars later, she is shuttled into a limo and the two are off on their first date.

But Sierra wants more than to make Blade's personal acquaintance - she wants to be the exclusive agent for a new luxury condo complex in Dallas and competes with other agents, eventually earning the most in sales and landing the position. She makes it clear to Blade, though, that she won't tolerate personal interference, or high-handedness based on their mutual attraction.

What Ray does well is build the relationship slowly. These two actually get to know each other fairly well before they become intimate, even though Blade has a big secret that he refuses to share. It takes far too long for him to share his secret with Sierra, and, because of it, some conflict ensues. I honestly don't know why he couldn't have told her far earlier in their relationship; the book would not have suffered for it, and my irritation level would not have been as high had he just been frank.

Even so, these are two very likable people, and all those who surround them in family and friendship are as well. There's actually a little too much goodness going around. Sierra, for instance, suffers from "I'm so good I am kind to the mentally challenged" syndrome, and as I mentioned earlier, those brothers of her came on so strong I wondered if they were a hold-over from the author's earlier writing of historical romances. As for one of the book's other flaws, enough with the designer name-dropping! I know she's rich...I don't need or want to know whether she's wearing Chloe or Marc Jacobs or Gucci at every turn. Finally, the narrative flow of the story is occasionally interrupted by stilted writing. At one point it sounds as though Blade is reading from a brochure when instead he is extemporaneously describing one of his resorts.

For all its flaws, at the core of this romance are two kind, caring people who don't play games with one another. That's a tremendous positive. Even though my final grade is just a C+, I'm going to look for one of the earlier books in the series to see if it works better for me.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

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