When a Book is a Letdown...

The Maverick (Long, Tall Texans) by Diana Palmer
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I was kind of excited about this book, I've been waiting for Harley to have his own story and even though I didn't finish reading this series during the summer I was going to keep reading to fill in the gaps since I had read Jon's book and had holes to fill in. However this book was the biggest let down.  I didn't like the characters, the dialogue or the story.  

There have been a few books that I've waited for with bated breath. Books that are finally telling the story of the character who has been in each previous books, or a romance that has been building up for a number of books.  Acheron by Sherrilyn Kenyon was one and I wasn't let down by this book, nor was I let down by Kiss of Snow by Nalini Singh.  They were just what I was expecting, the epic stories they had been built up to be.

I wasn't expecting Harley's story to be epic, but I was expecting to at least like Harley's story.  We've seen Harley be the fall back guy for a number of heroines while they deal with their own romances. In a letter to readers that appeared before the story, Diana Palmer stated that she wanted to do his story justice, I think the failed.  This didn't seem like Harley's story, this felt more like a build up book for Kilraven, Marquez, and Jon and their books.  

To start off with I didn't like Alice from the first page, nor did I like what was supposed to pass for witty banter between Alice and Harley.  There was also way too much background dialogue that seems forced.  As a reader I know it's there to add information, but the conversations seemed scripted, like those horrible radio commercials.  

Those the biggest thing for me was the fact that no one, NO ONE, was able to put one and one together to figure out who Harley's father was, I mean his father is a Senator with the same last name. It's not like they are running around with the last name Smith.  Fowler is not a common name and am I really supposed to believe that no one was able to look into the Senator and find out that he had a son named Harley. I mean how many Harley Fowlers are there in Texas?

I barely read the book, I briefly skimmed the pages to see if there was anything interesting and honestly there wasn't, I don't know if I'll finish reading the series now. 

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