Nicole Reads A Lot

I was so excited when this book appeared on my ereader at midnight! It was a great ending to a really enjoyable birthday.

Without going into too much detail, I will say that this book had what was, in my mind, one of the most satisfying resolutions to a love triangle that I ever read. First of all, all three of the participants made it out of the book alive, which isn’t always a given. Second, the guy I liked better won. That’s not always guaranteed to happen, either. What can I say? I always root for the underdog.

There are a few things that I found strange and the whole politics subplot required way too many explanations and exceptions to be believable.

For instance: Why is the US senator uncle so often in Indiana, when he represents Massachusetts? (Click on the blurred text to see potential spoilers.) Further, How would Blane, who’d previously run for governor of Indiana AND came from an entirely different political party, be able to easily step in an win his uncle’s seat? That bit of foolishness greatly detracted from this book.

I read to learn, and I really appreciate Ms. Snow letting us know that, at the heart of all anti-fracking activism is Russian money. Because fracking is totally okay and 100% nontoxic and not even kind of harmful to the environment. Sure, stupid people who blindly support environmental causes may have been duped into taking up the cause, but what they don’t know is that anti-fracking activism is largely funded by Russian money. Why, you ask? Because Russia’s greatest export is natural gas, they’re desperate to block all US efforts to cultivate American sources of energy. See? Fracking isn’t bad for the environment, it’s bad for Russia’s bottom line, and the dumb and/or greedy will do all they can to prevent Americans from ever knowing the truth about anti-fracking efforts. This is some Bond villian-level thinking, and I congratulate Ms. Snow on her healthy paranoia. Meanwhile, I think I just strained an optic nerve, what with all the eye-rolling I did through that part of the book. Between this and Kathleen’s singing an internal ode to 2nd Amendment rights in the middle of a gun battle, I don’t have to reach far to figure out Ms. Snow’s political leanings.

This story is a 4.5 star for me, easily. The action is great, the romance has depth, most of the players transcend easy classifications to achieve realness [except for the one-note bad guy(s)], and the ending works for me on many levels, including karmic. The political motivations at the heart of this story are a total joke, but I enjoyed the rest of the book enough not to care too much.