Susan Stoker - Rescuing Emily

Renting out the apartment over his garage shouldn’t be a life-changing decision, but when Delta soldier Cormac “Fletch” Fletcher meets Emily Grant, he feels an instant connection. He can’t stand the thought of Emily and her young daughter living anywhere unsafe. Offering cheap rent is a small price to pay for their safety…and Fletch’s peace of mind.
Being a single mother is difficult at best, but renting the extremely affordable space from Fletch makes Emily’s life a lot easier…until it doesn’t. Suddenly all the money she’s saving thanks to Fletch’s generosity is going into the hands of a blackmailer. And what little food Emily can afford goes to her daughter Annie, so the girl doesn’t go to bed hungry…leaving Emily weaker and weaker.
When miscommunication has Emily assuming Fletch is in on the blackmail, he not only has to gain her trust, but also deal with a man holding a grudge against Fletch and his entire Delta Force team. A task made more difficult when the dangerous man gets his hands on Emily and Annie…

Comment: It is very likely I've added this book to the pile because it would feature a heroine in a complicated financial situation but she would find a way to improve her life. I tend to like this premise but, as always, it's not that easy to find a plot that sustains this idea well...

Emily is a single mother of a six year old and they need to change houses, which is how she meets Fletch, by going to see the apartment he is renting. Both feel the other one is someone they can trust, especially because Fletch is in the military, but after a while things change. Emily is happy enough living there, she even thinks Fletch might be attracted to her as she is to him, but one day a guy shows up and blackmails her, using the threat she would fear the most, that something would happen to her child. Emily feels she has no choice, but what will happen when Fletch finally learns why it seems Emily isn't eating enough?

You know, I'm all for the fantasy of overcoming a bad situation, of achieving something in a slightly unreal way, not as much as being rescued in the sense that the hero magically makes everything right, but more by accepting the heroine can have some trouble, but things do improve. When one's life isn't easy or goes the way intended, reading about plausible fantasy (what an oxymoron!) can be truly satisfying.

Sadly, I can't say that I had that experience here, or at least, not completely. At first, I was into the writing style and the plot and was surprised I was enjoying this book, since it is the first I try by the author and looking at her long back list, I immediately imagined the stories had to be quite formulaic for there to exist so many in many different series. But Emily seemed a sweet enough person, her daughter Annie stole the show and the romance seemed to be thought to be a slow burn.

I was enjoying the writing style, everything is direct and without flourishes, but then, page after page, I've noticed that the characters weren't really developed, and the style seemed to grate on me and I couldn't help but focus on the predominance of the "tell" instead of the "show". The characters are mostly likable but there isn't much depth to how they were developed. For instance, we have some information about their background, and about some of their thoughts, but nothing beyond the basic.

Despite this, I was still interested in what was happening, and the initial setup was good enough even though I could see I wasn't going to find this a five star read. I started to find the story less appealing from the moment the heroine is blackmailed because it was done in a very ridiculous way. The heroine is living in the apartment, the hero even told her to pay a lower rent because he could notice she didn't have much. but there was some juvenile ongoing military stuff between two groups and someone in the other group developed an obsession with defeating Fletch's.

This means that the villain found out about Emily and the lower rent and then blackmailed her, saying Fletch was aware. When Emily and Fletch speak next after this situation, their conversation was so incredibly muddled and absurd that the miscommunication the author decided to use as a way for the plot to carry on became unrealistic and, frankly, silly. Could I really accept that two adult people would not use other specific words to discuss such a situation, or that Emily would not think of demanding explanations from Fletch and would read his answers in such a distorted way? I know that human logic isn't always reliable and that we project and that we see what we want, but come on!

As the problem continues, Emily and Annie's lives become more difficult and Emily even goes without eating so that her daughter can. When the truth finally comes out, the plot went into a more predictable path and the romance also had an advance. Towards the end, nothing really special happened, it was all very easy to guess and while the story ended in a way that I can see as being sweet, it wasn't very impressive anyway, because the characters didn't really evolve. We do have secondary characters who will be protagonists in future books (and the couple from book #1) but none caught my attention enough to make me want to read their books.

As a whole, this isn't a bad story, and I did like several elements. It was also easy to read, with fluidity and many active scenes (as opposed to monologue or introspection) which give the vibe of something constantly happening. But the writing style started to loose me after a few chapters and the characters weren't developed with enough depth to suit me.

Grade: 5/10