Review: Fearsome by S. A. Wolfe (ARC)

Fearsome by S. A. Wolfe
Date Published: 10/1/2013

Jessica Channing’s big city life should be more exciting than sixty-hour work weeks and popcorn nights with her girlfriends, but it’s not. She has worked hard fulfilling her role as a child prodigy and graduating college years before her peers. She’s the good girl, the brilliant girl.

Unfortunately, she’s also the dateless young woman.

That all changes with one phone call. Jess’s rigid, predictable life upends when she must visit a small, obscure town to deal with a relative’s death. This isn’t just any little speck of a town, though. Long lost memories come crashing down on Jess’s world when two men, the Blackard brothers, seem to lure her in.

Dylan is cover model handsome, and pursues Jess the minute she comes to town. Then there is tall, dark and gorgeous Carson, who hides his own secrets behind his hardened reserve.

For someone who has been governed by her own obsessive behaviors and fears, Jess lets her guard down and jumps at the opportunity to have an affair with a man she actually finds attractive for a change.

There’s just one problem. Jess discovers that she can’t have a simple romantic fling because true passion does indeed come with some very big strings attached to it. She will have to own up to her own truths about love and face the two extraordinary men; both troubled in their own ways and both determined to have her.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of the book for a tour, and it did not affect my review or rating of the book whatsoever.

Let me start off by stating the obvious. I don't normally read NA, and I'm probably still a bit young to be reading NA, but the book did intrigue me, so.

In it's most basic form, the story isn't bad. A little predictable in some ways, perhaps, but in other ways, also very surprising. There were some revelations about characters that I was not expecting, and there was enough tension at the very least to keep me reading. The tension between Carson and Dylan was particularly interesting to read, and I liked seeing their relationship evolve. (And personally, I don't like sibling love triangle plots, so that was a bit of a turn off for me.)

But I did have a problem with Jess. I just could get myself to like her. I couldn't connect to her, and while I could sometimes understand where she was coming from, she wasn't someone that I liked very much. She was bearable enough to read the book, but there was something unsettling to me about her and the way she treats people. Her reactions seemed extreme most of the time and they didn't seem to fit who I thought she was at the beginning.

There were other characters, however, that I did like. I'm still a little hesitant on Carson, but I absolutely loved Lauren and Imogene. They were hilarious and fun. Perhaps they weren't as complex as I would have liked them to be, but I think that it balanced out Dylan, Jess, and Carson, who were all so complex that it almost overpowered everything else. Thankfully there was always Lauren and Imogene.

All in all, this was a decent read. I didn't particularly enjoy the apparent telling over showing, but it was more along a fine line than completely being too much. There were a few characters that I really enjoyed and some others that were decent and interesting enough to get me to finish the book. I don't know if I'd recommend it, but I definitely think it's a bit too erm...steamy for younger readers, even if they're my age.

You can find Fearsome on: Smashwords | Amazon | Barnes and Noble
You can find S. A. Wolfe on: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads