TBR Challenge: Rebekah Weatherspoon - Rafe

All Dr. Sloan Copeland needed was someone to watch her kids. What she found was the man of her dreams…
After a nasty divorce and a thousand mile move, Dr. Sloan Copeland and her twin daughters are finally getting the hang of their new life in Los Angeles. When their live-in nanny bails with no warning, Sloan is left scrambling to find a competent caretaker to wrangle her smart, sensitive girls. Nothing less will do.
Enter Rafe Whitcomb. He's all of those things, not to mention good-natured and one heck of a whiz in the kitchen. He's also tall, and handsome, and bearded, and ripped, and tatted, wrist to neck.
It doesn't take long for the Copelands to invite Rafe into their home. Just as quickly, both Sloan and Rafe find themselves succumbing to a heady mutual attraction, neither of them wants to deny. With every minute they spend under the same roof, this working mom can't help but wonder if Rafe can handle all her needs...

Comment: One more month already gone, if one counts things using the challenge's themes going by and it does seem this happens very quickly! 

In August the theme is tropestatic which immediately made me think about the immense amount of tropes often seen in books, especially in romances. I went with a book that switches the trope a little: instead of boss/single dad with nanny/employee I chose a book with a female boss and a male nanny.... in m/f this isn't certainly the norm so I thought it was an interesting play on the whole trope idea!

In this book dr Sloan Copeland is a young but genius cardiologist, one of the most brilliant black women in the field and she is very good at her job but her family life wasn't as successful. She is divorced and has the guard of her twin six year old girls and the demands of her work hours means the best option for her is a live in nanny. When the story begins, the girls' nanny has suddenly left and Sloan needs someone immediately. That is how referrals indicate her Rafe, a white male with tattoos who often intimidates others but that has a lot of experience and Sloan meets him, the girls seem to approve, and he starts living with them. But there's something neither was counting on, how much attracted to one another they would be...

Just the blurb and my small summary are more than enough to think of this as tropetastic, and adding the other elements, it seems obvious, wouldn't you agree? There's certainly plenty to choose from if one wanted to discuss this book but I will say right away I wasn't too dazzled due to one single reason: it was boring. I just couldn't not feel enough emotional investment in the story and reading it, from a certain point on, was rather like a duty instead of being fun. Still, I had decided to stick with this choice and finished the book. Thankfully, it isn't a long book.

I was sold on trying this one after some positive reviews where some readers said the black woman and white male made for a sexy combination and the personalities of each protagonist made for a clashing but sweet romance and I wanted to read that too. However, while Rafe and Sloan do seem to complement each other in terms of personality - she is driven and always in motion, he seems quieter and takes longer to make decisions - as soon as they meet, instead of things progressing slowly but romantically, I've felt their sexual connection happened way too soon.

I mean, this wouldn't have to be a problem but I was really convinced more attention would be given to the nanny side of things and that the romance would be sweeter. I don't mind they become lovers rather soon but this definitely changed the whole "vibe" of the story and it started to be very boring because it was more about the steps between them in how to progress this side of their relationship than the emotional aspect or the relationship with the girls. Besides, I was annoyed they would be able to put aside the whole boss/employee issue aside so easily, even if boundaries were being respected by agreement between them. Where's the fun of a slow burn because they see each other often and have to interact until they trust each other enough to fall in love? That was what I was looking for.

On one hand, though, I did like how they took time to tell each other what they wanted and how both took into consideration the other's needs and emotional state when they start being lovers, but... at the same time, this wasn't very romantic, for instance if it had been done in a way that would indicate they couldn't help it... I also disliked the wording a bit, how they kept having sexy thoughts about one another while dealing with mundane things put me off of the story and felt jarring.

The author also introduces several other issues which can be pertinent to a relationship between people with different types of jobs and there's even the issue of Sloan's ex, which seems to be an easy villain in this scenario. I think some scenes were used to validate the need for women, no matter white or black, to have a voice and how they have the right to speak their minds and have careers without the approval of a man, it does seem clear the author had a purpose by using certain content, which I agree with, but then I kept thinking this was a premeditated goal, and perhaps not a real need for the plot.... so, my attention wandered, I've lost interest and just wanted the story to be done.

All things considered, this isn't a big book and certain elements were interesting, which could have made this an OK read. But then I think of what I liked less, of what I'd change and realize I just didn't have much fun reading this one. 

Grade: 4/10