Dare To Take

This is post number 22.

Cover:

This the final romance novel of a series by Carly Phillips

Plot: Ella Shaw is stuck on an island with a hurricane coming. Her only chance of rescue is her best friend’s brother Tyler Dare, but their past makes her weary. Can Tyler prove he’s sorry for his actions, or will Ella struggle to find the strength to forgive him?

Passage:

“Tyler was glad to see that spunk still lived inside her. He found it easier to focus on this side of Ella than the vulnerable woman who’d pulled away from him in bed. He hated knowing that he’d hurt her, and even more, that the pain had stuck with her all these years. There was a lot he didn’t know about Ella and the woman she’d become. Any time his sister spoke of her, Tyler tuned her out, not wanting to deal with the lie between him and Avery or the self-loathing he always experienced because of how he’d behaved afterwards.”

Spoilers/Opinion: I know beggars can’t be choosers, but I wish this novel was not the last of a 6 part series. The family has quite a few members and I had trouble keeping all of the pairs straight. I can’t blame the author for this since she probably goes more in depth in the previous books, but I wanted to give a warning to people who want to jump into novel without backstory.

For a Romance novel, there is a decent amount of plot that does not involve Ella and Tyler hooking up. While in St. Lucia, Ella’s boss gives Ella a stolen necklace for safe-keeping. She does not know it was stolen, and as a result, she is put in a precarious position. Tyler has to come to her rescue because she was mugged right before a hurricane, and he is the only one who can get her out of there without a passport.Because he comes to her rescue and protects Ella when they return to the states, they rekindle an old flame. I like that there is a reason for the two of them to reconcile besides “just cuz”, especially with the taboo of sleeping with a sister’s best friend. From here the plot gets convoluted with two of the siblings having children, Ella’s father dying in prison, and a confrontation with Tyler’s dad. If the author chose one father issue and one sibling’s childbirth then the novel would feel more focused and less confusing.

For the romance itself, Tyler and Ella have some issues that they worked out. Ella lost her virginity to Tyler, and he turned her away after they hooked up. At first she did not trust Tyler or intentions, but they hook up and move past it. They both have daddy issues, with Ella’s using her and Tyler’s breaking up the family, that they work through individually. I like seeing character growth, so I appreciated seeing the pair move past their personal problems.

That said, Ella and Tyler don’t have much in common except their problems, and they only hang out to have sex. This gives the novel more of an erotica feel than a true romance. The scenes are explicit and frequent to the point of being distracting. If the author had written more scenes where Tyler and Ella connected on an emotional or intellectual level rather than just physical, I think the novel would have been more successful.

Ratings:This is a Romance novel so the ratings are as follows

Relationship drama: 6/10
Romantic Development: 4/10
Hot love interest: 4/10
Creativity: 4/10
Plot: 6/10

Overall, I give Dare to Take a 5/10. I liked having more to the plot than just the romance, but I was confused with too many characters with similar traits. The couple works through some issues, but doesn’t have much going for them other than sex.

Citation:

Carly Phillips (2014?). Dare To Take[Kindle Edition]. Retrieved from Amazon.com. Retrieved 3/1/2017