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A review by jackiehorne
Make Me Stay by Rebecca Brooks
4.0
3.5 Hard-driving real estate developer Samantha Kane travels to Gold Mountain to persuade a last holdout to sell land to her company so she can realize her dead father's dream to develop the Washington state ski mountain into a major resort. But she ends up meeting the holdout, Austin Reede, on the slopes and because of their attraction, doesn't immediately reveal who she is. And she keeps not telling him the truth, as they engage in a weekend tryst that turns into something far more emotionally meaningful than either expected.
Brooks crafts a compelling romance between two strong characters in this brief novel, both of whom have had difficulties opening up emotionally to other people (and for very good reasons). And it was great to see the big developer role taken on by a female character, especially one as hard-driving and as savvy about gender issues as is Sam.
I'm not a big fan of books where one character hides his/her identity from the other, though; I hate anticipating that cringeworthy moment when the truth comes out. The deceived partner has a right to be angry, too, and so the making-up between the two is hard to craft without making one or both partners look silly or stupid. Brooks falls into that trap here; Austin's turnaround happened far too quickly, after only one short conversation with his friends. As Sam says toward the end of their make-up scene, "I don't understand how we got here"—readers will likely wonder, too.
Brooks crafts a compelling romance between two strong characters in this brief novel, both of whom have had difficulties opening up emotionally to other people (and for very good reasons). And it was great to see the big developer role taken on by a female character, especially one as hard-driving and as savvy about gender issues as is Sam.
I'm not a big fan of books where one character hides his/her identity from the other, though; I hate anticipating that cringeworthy moment when the truth comes out. The deceived partner has a right to be angry, too, and so the making-up between the two is hard to craft without making one or both partners look silly or stupid. Brooks falls into that trap here; Austin's turnaround happened far too quickly, after only one short conversation with his friends. As Sam says toward the end of their make-up scene, "I don't understand how we got here"—readers will likely wonder, too.