🍷🍷.5 #Review of Wicked Sinner by Stacey Kennedy

 

Title:  Wicked Sinner
Series:  Dangerous Love #2
Author: Stacey Kennedy
Format: Paperback/eBook, 304 pages
Publication: Oct. 15, 2019 by Forever
ASIN:    B07NCXZYCF 
Links: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N
Source: NetGalley
Reviewer: Kimberly
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 Wine Glasses

Asher Sullivan was once Remy Brennan's entire world--until he broke her heart into a million pieces. So when Asher crashes her wedding, Remy is certain he's come to claim her. To make her his again. Instead, it turns out Remy's groom is a con man scheming for her inheritance. Now all she's left with is an empty bank account, a serious case of lust for her gorgeous ex...and a duffel bag of cold, hard cash that might just fix all her problems.

Detective Asher Sullivan has always protected Remy. So when dangerous criminals start threatening her, Asher's most primitive instincts take over. Sticking by Remy's side means Asher is finally able to make amends for leaving her all those years ago. And soon they're giving in to their wicked, insatiable need. But just as Asher gets his second chance, a secret Remy is keeping could rip her away from him...forever.

Kimberly's Thoughts:
Asher broke Remy's heart when he abruptly broke up with her and now years later, he's been trying to be her friend but she doesn't know if her heart can take it. When he objects at her wedding, she can't stop the flutter of her heart. Unfortunately, it's to arrest her almost husband, turns out he was a conman just out for her inheritance.
When she finds what could be a fortuitous gift left behind by her scam artist ex, she jumps at the chance to start her dream business. However, Remy's luck might not be changing as a shady maybe tied to the mob guy shows up and the only one who can help her is Asher.

“One chance to be friends, Asher. That’s it. Mess this up, and we’re done. Forever.”

A second chance romance in the Dangerous Love series, Remy and Asher have quite the past. They were madly in love while Remy was in highschool and Asher graduated and went onto the Police Academy. Asher gets recruited by the FBI and after his mother commits suicide, he decides that all the dark emotion inside of him should be kept away from Remy and he leaves her behind in Maine while he goes to D.C. I didn't read the first in the series and I felt like I missed background emotion between these two. There was a good flashback scene to their breakup and then a quick recap of how Asher's been back for five years, Remy ignored him for the first couple and the last year has just started talking to him. This story starts with Asher claiming to just want to be friends with Remy and her thinking maybe she can but nervous that she still loves him.

This angst could have worked for me but Asher's thoughts and emotions constantly contradicted the “just friends”, one moment he was spouting how he only wanted friendship because of the darkness in him and then there were scenes where he is wanting to spend all day in bed with Remy and basically acting like he wanted a relationship with her. He wasn't warring internally with himself, just the writing ignoring  the character conflict in favor of having them together.

No one made her laugh like Asher. No one made her feel as alive as Asher had. In that empty hollowness of her chest, a part of her wanted to feel a little piece of that again.

Remy's interest in New Age things gave her an interesting hook but the catalyst for the danger she gets put in, using money she found in her house that she assumed was her conman ex-fiance's, to start her dream business, gave her an aggravating clueless personality as the story went on. It's obvious from early on that she should tell Asher, who is a cop or any of her other two friends who are cops, that a maybe mob guy is after her because of the money she used. The group of friends the series seems to follow provided some good friendships for Remy. I liked how the other two women, Peyton (heroine from first book) and Kinsley (bestfriend of Remy and sister to hero from book one) supported and laughed with one another.

He cupped her face, then brought his mouth close to hers, and before he claimed the kiss, he said, “I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”

This book seemed to have a little too much going on, the heavy issues Asher personally had to deal with (his mother's suicide, alcoholic father), Remy being in possible danger from the mob, and their healing from a painful past while trying to build a current romance; these threads never had focus or time enough to go into the depth I needed to get me emotionally involved. The ending was more anticlimactic for me as the have to marry for inheritance forced these two together at around the 85% mark and then gave a quick “oh I guess I do want to be married to you” turn around that provided no emotional fulfillment. Basically, Remy and Asher's journey didn't flow for me, they had some sweet moments but emotions, thoughts, and actions contradicted for sake of dragging the story out. There was a secondary romance teased between Kinsley and Rhett (Kinsley's brother's bestfriend and fellow cop) that might have me checking out the third in the series.

Suggested Reading Order:
Book #1 Naughty Stranger
Book #2 Wicked Sinner
Book #3 Ruthless Bastard