When he least expects it, Zane Hawkins is back on the tabloid covers with the news of his name getting caught up in a sordid sex scandal. Although scandals aren’t rare occurrences in the Hollywood mogul’s world, this one has the power to ruin his business and personal life.
Can he convince the public of his innocence and salvage his reputation to have his company remain in the game?
No matter … game?
No matter how he handles it, though, whether he’ll actually live up to the expectations and be worthy of his new girlfriend’s loyalty and commitment remains to be seen.
Book 2 of 2.
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Original review: https://myshelfbooks.wordpress.com/2020/03/29/review-zane-part-2-by-liv-bennett/
I read the first part about a year ago. It wasn’t a great experience, but I didn’t want to leave the story without an end. I know they say second parts are never good, but I wanted to give it a chance. You never know when you are going to be pleasantly surprised. It didn’t happen this time, but I needed to try. Lesson learned? Not at all. I will keep comitting this kind of mistakes. Otherwise, I should give back my reader card. Let’s see what we got in this new chance to visit the two dimensional world of Zane!
Zane wants to be a new man! And by that I mean he want to stick with just one woman and remember her name the following day. The lucky lady is Scarlet, who is elated to have the hunky businessman all for herself. But his past is pretty colourful and is coming back with a vengeance. Can the popular starlet handle all the pressure that comes with dating Zane or is their relationship forever doomed? Whatever it is, we have Julie as a witness. She is still deeply in love with her boss, but as long as he is happy, she will be happy. Or so she says…
One oy my main complaints of the first part was how messy it was. It wasn’t clear in which genre the book was dwelling, but in the end it took more tools from the Erotica one than any other. This second book starts more or less the same way, but it quickly morphs into a more classic Contemporary Romance book with bursts of sudden sex now and then. This time I’m OK with that. But it is still a pretty messy story. That new messiness comes from the weak attempts of the author to bring some drama to Zane’s life. I bet she wanted us to believe his life is not so perfect by throwing some trouble in his path, but it is done in a very chaotic and uncoordinated way. And mostly, in a way that doesn’t make much sense.
First drama: the orgy scandal. Why is that a scandal for him? How a sex god’s (as he describes himself) reputation can be affected by a declaration of how good he is during group sex? I didn’t understand that at all. Second drama: the pregnancy. That one is actually a good idea that makes a lot of sense for someone like Zane, who has sprayed his seed all over the continent and beyond. So, why the need of making it so convulated with weird impregnation techniques and even a murder? Yes, a murder! One that is later blatantly ignored, by the way. Third drama: Penelope. It is a very short lived drama (a couple of pages) that it comes out of nowhere, it has zero consequences and I still don’t know why we even had it. Fourth drama: Julie. Yeah, the cool assistant loses her cool and becomes something hard to recognize. That one was a pain to read.
Nothing gets better with the characters in this second part. I would even dare to say it gets much, much worse. Zane enhances his zaneness even more. This guy’s world ends in his belly button. Beyond that point everything is secondary and imperfect. Because we are forced to believe that he is the most of the most at everything. He sets the rules. The pace of the world. Even the Sun makes an exception for him and spins around that celestial being with perfect muscles all over. It’s ridiculous that no one, absolutely no one calls his bullshit. Besides, some lab should run a bunch test on him, because he has to emit some kind of weird hormone that makes women irrational to the point of twisting their personalities until becoming some kind of zombie that instead of brains only wants Zane in their menu. We witness a little bit about that with Scarlet, but with Julie is utterly undeniable. She changes so fast that I’m still dizzy trying to catch up with her new behaviour. The only half decent character, becomes one that it is even worse than Zane. All to make Zane look even better, I guess.
And the ending… I’m not a junky for happy endings. I even dare authors to get away from them. But what I do not want is being sold a horrible existance as a happy ending. And that is what we get with this book. Julie can’t possibly be happy with such daily turmoil in her mind. And I do not believe Zane’s handsomeness and hunkiness can cure all her maladies as we are meant to believe. Since when is she so shallow?
Goodbye and good riddance. I don’t want to meet those characters ever again!