Mark: Firefighter Curvy Woman Romance (Grover Fire Dept. Book 2)

This was a quick read. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get into it.

Spoilers:

It started off well. With a steamy closet encounter. I was definitely into it. But then it fell into the cliches way too quickly. It wasn’t adult enough for me other than the erotic bit. The guy not calling is kind of overused. The girl getting mad about it is overused as well. In the interest of women not allowing the guy to dictate, have power over their emotions, her getting mad and throwing attituded when she finally met up with him again felt forced. Like was making a scene in a grocery store really that necessary. It screamed drama just because she could. And you could tell as the book went on they had history. Like they didn’t just meet on the night and end up naked together. So with all that possibly lead to this he just decided, nah, I’m not gonna call which he knew was a bad idea, and she, of course, couldn’t just be like whatever at least the sex was good and go about her business thus leading to the grocery encounter. They did stuff, he didn’t call, it is what it is. The grocery store blow up was just too mcuh.

Then, after finding out she was pregnant, for six whole months she was like nah I’m not going to tell him. She knows where he works, has crushed on him for a lengthy period of time and just cause he didn’t call back she’s not going to even attempt to see if he wants kids regardless of if he wants to be with her or not? At the very least she should’ve told him just to see if he was the asshole she thought he was. There was something very immature about not telling the father of your child he is a father because of a phone call. Is this really how adults behave?

That’s not all though. Before the six months the guy says to his best mate after the grocery encounter that he’s messed up and needs his help. So I’m reading expecting some master plan to get her to like him again which would reveal the pregnancy at a reasonable time but nope. It just jumps to six months later. I wanted to like it but the story lost me when there was no follow up on needing his best friend’s help; when the lead woman decided that confrontation instead of feigned indifference was the best approach and then not even bothering to tell him for six months she was pregnant and still holding on to some anger when being rescued from a car accident after that six months. I dunno I guess I’m just a bit biased but I felt like the adults could’ve been adultier. I came in expecting a steamy, quick, no angst fluffy with a twist of humour read but got all the tropes I’d expect in a full-length novel of this genre.

So would I recommend it? I had to really think about this but it gets a yes. I’m well aware people get into the man didn’t call so the woman must be angry, the jump to conclusions, angsty and often irrational decision making that romance novels entail. This book is exactly that even with its short page count. I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if people fall madly in love with this short, but for me, the way the characters behaved with the timeline given was too unreal for me to get on board with.