The Love Scam

This book had so much promise, first of all it takes place in Venice, Italy and that’s one of the main reasons I picked it up, I love Venice and when I saw this book and saw that it took place in Venice and it was a romance with a mystery, I knew that I wanted to read. But, it just felt short in my opinion.

Rake is our main character, who is a millionaire, but he wakes up in Venice one day with no idea on how he got there, and he has no wallet and worst of all he his bank account has been emptied. And then enters Claire, who brings Lillith to Rake claiming that she is his long lost daughter.

Well, so far the story was great, but them it got weird, Rake doesn’t do anything to solve his problem, he just does whatever Claire tells him to do, he has to “work” in order to get a new cell phone and sleep in the hotel room where she is living, and while he is working for her he can help her figure out what happened to Lillith’s mother and she will also get a DNA test to confirm the paternity. Things just went too fast for me, I love so meet cute, but this one just fell a little too fast and not real for me.

I really loved the little girl, Lillith, she was my favorite character, she was wicked smart and I wish there was more of her throughout the book. lol

Overall 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Let me start this by saying if you have not read the previous book “Danger, Sweetheart”, you may want to before reading this book. I was a little lost at the beginning and finally caught up, but it took a few chapters and I did not enjoy the journey. By the mid point, I was “all in” and loved the twists and turns. One item I feel needs correcting are the constant foot notes per chapter, you are either constantly going back, or skipping forward to match them in the chapter. The story is twisted, fun, outrageous and romantic. A fun read.

Imagine waking up with a massive hangover and not knowing where you are or how you got there? In The Love Scam by MaryJanice Davidson that is exactly what happens. And if that isn’t bad enough Rake Tarbell’s wallet and phone are both missing. Enter Claire Delaney, a stranger who at the request of her dead friend has been looking for Rake to try and determine if he is her daughter, Lillith’s, father. Rake has a twin brother named Blake and unfortunately there has been some kind of a mix up and somehow they have lost their fortunes. In this crazy book, there are highs and lows and turns and twists and even unexpected joy and happiness. A little crazy but I would recommend.

Full review posted at Reader’s Edyn on 01/31/20

Claire is quite secretive about everything involving Rake as well as herself. She has the upper hand because she actually knows more than she’s letting on to and the longer she can delay Rake from discovering the truth, the better things will be for all of them. The billionaire playboy won’t be but a memory of a short time spent in Venice when all is completed. Except the man she believes she has pegged turns out to be anything but. The image thrust in the public’s face merely a facade. In a short amount of time, as she begins to form a delicate bond with Rake, she quickly finds herself in danger of much more than anticipated at the start of this journey. Her heart could very well be lost to her when they inevitably part ways; her resistance toward Rake rapidly crumbling. As long as she focuses on the importance of this Venice encounter, she will be able to hold her ground and resist his distracting charms…maybe.

Rake is a rich playboy. Rather than embrace responsibility, he shirks anything serious; running through life full of sass, booze, and women. His twin brother is the polar opposite and constantly taking the form of an annoying little voice in Rake’s head, admonishing him for the choices he makes as he flits through life with no purpose. After one drunken night of…unknown…Rake finds himself in Venice with no ID, no possessions, and no money. His bank has been drained of millions. The only clue available to him comes in the form of Claire. A conundrum to be sure, initially, he can’t quite seem to figure her out. There’s also the slight hiccup that she’s toting around a highly observant and intelligent girl who she claims is Rake’s daughter. Challenge accepted. He’s going to get to the bottom if this situation. Claire may think she holds all of the cards in Rake’s momentary loss of – everything, really – but he’s just as intelligent and observant as the young Lillith, if not more. Preferring to play the role he’s been cast in given his fast life, Rake soon unravels the mystery. Not only that, he plans to put his own spin on it and Claire will certainly hold a place in the new reality he chooses to create. He’s just got to make his plea believable and trust that she has had enough time getting to know his true self – one he never reveals to anyone.

OK guys … all I can say is that I I sincerely hope that between now and August, this book gets some serious edits. My review copy is an ARC, so some things can be forgiven as ARCs frequently have a few issues. Not near this many typically, but generally speaking, you can be a little less stringent on editing errors within an ARC. There is so much wrong with this fantastic plot. It’s maddening!

The first thing that I immediately disliked was that Rake’s twin brother is named Blake. No. Stop it. My first impression was, “Are you kidding me?” Second, there are so many internal monologues going on. Some of the pages appear as though the keyboard barfed italics and refused to revert back to the standard font. Due to this issue, much of the writing became confusing. Many times, I was sure that the text appeared to be an inner thought, but had been spoken instead. And vice versa. There are also several side comments contained within parenthesis. The moral of the story here is to make up your mind. Write the inner monologue as part of the scene instead of creating so much separation. I could have read this book twice as quickly had I not been forced to keep track of where the text was attempting to take me. Third, whatever the descriptions are, they should remain consistent. Rake’s initial description of Claire did not bring me to believe that he found her attractive. In fact, one portion of the description included that she had big feet. What? The? Hell? Not a couple of chapters later, he’s describing her as gorgeous. By this time, I’m seriously contemplating stamping a humongous DNF on this book. The only thing that kept me going was the fact that it was an ARC and I argued with myself that I was being too hard on the plot due to a large percentage of my complaints encircling…yep. Editing. I persevered. Fourth, Claire is clearly annoyed by everything Rake. His dashing looks, his blasé attitude, his money, his inability to take anything serious. Yep. Everything Rake annoys her. All of a sudden, we find her giggling at something he’s said or done. This ends up happening several times. But giggling? She’s clearly some sort of bad-ass investigator. Maybe. Giggling just took her badassery down a notch. I didn’t care for it at all. Fifth would be the language and by language I am referring to the Italian and whatever else is used. Now this would not regularly annoy me, but the fact that the author felt the need to translate what was being said, did. In fact, several chapters have footnotes explaining either the translation or something else. For example, stating that something that occurred is referring to a previous book. Huh? Never in all of the books I have read have I come across an author that actually referred to a previous book. Adding to the muddle, if this story is part of a series, it is not indicated anywhere. I mean nowhere. I searched and I couldn’t find it. I didn’t even turn up the book the footnote referred to. Aggravating! Sixth was the fact that Claire – I mean Delaney – she doesn’t go by Claire and pretty much all of the text refers to her as Delaney. What? But I digress. Claire leaves Lillith with Rake, not even knowing for sure if he is her father. I didn’t at all care for this action. It was later explained, but still didn’t sit well with me; especially given how Claire feels about Rake at the time. Ugh. I was literally about to end the book right there. This thing has fifty-three chapters! Fifty-three! And some of them are maybe ½ a page. Why? I don’t know. All mentioned thus far occurred by the conclusion of chapter thirteen. Thirteen you guys! And you know what kept me going after that? No lie. I was literally about to shut off the e-reader. It was the last flipping line of the chapter. I’m not even kidding! So maybe start reading at chapter fourteen at this point. Blessedly, once I got past those first thirteen chapters, everything got so much better. There was still a bunch of the editing, italics, parenthesis, etc. occurring. However, it was much less than initially. So those are the problems.

Here’s what I liked. This book wasn’t at all what I expected. Aside from all of the confusing aspects, it was generally a very good plot. The jocular dialogue and thoughts were quite entertaining. Lillith was unlike any child I have read about and I enjoyed her out-of-the-box character development. I wouldn’t say I became overly attached to Claire and Rake. However, by the time Rake put in his two cents as to what was occurring over the course of their time in Venice, I fell just a little bit in love with him. With the way he handled everything and his solution to each curve ball thrown at him, I was impressed. Want to know the dumbest thing? Corresponding to Rake’s disaster in Venice, Blake is going through his own turmoil. We glimpse a bit of it as Rake communicated with Blake. Shockingly, I became curious about what Blake was enduring! What? I’m not even sure how that happened. I’m really not. I suppose in some small way, despite all of the glaring snags, somehow this author got to me. For that, I have to give her kudos. Pretty freaking amazing given my determination not to finish the book originally. Or crazy. Maybe both. I am a bit dismayed that Ms. Davidson has so many published books and yet the ARC has so much formatting difficulty. It looks as though many of her books are a part of one series and involve vampires. So perhaps this is a new writing journey into less than uncharted territory. I am unsure. Come to think of it, I don’t know how much my review will help anyone. But this is the way I see it currently. An ARC is not the final copy. If I am not honest about the negative areas, then I shouldn’t be reviewing. And if I let everything remain in the negative without speaking to those instances that I ultimately enjoyed, then I am doing everyone a disservice. From this review I am taking away the following: The ARC needs a lot of work and likely will not bring this author a new following; might actually cause her to lose some of her current following. However, with the adjustments made – and I find it truly unfathomable to entertain the thought that there wouldn’t be a deep edit prior to publishing in August – it’s actually quite an entertaining read. If you are a reader and you don’t tend to review, then just wait for the final copy to be released later in the year. That way, hopefully, none of the above problems I encountered will become your burden. If the book does not get cleaned up, then I wouldn’t come back. Despite my curiosity in the companion book (if there is one), there are just too many issues that interfere with my reading enjoyment to allow me to knowingly go through anything like this again.

Kindle version provided by NetGalley/St. Martin’s in exchange for an honest review.