So Kate Rothwell, (bless her cotton socks) kindly sent me two of her books, Somebody To Love, and Somebody Wonderful.

This is the review for Somebody To Love.

Here’s the blurb:

Araminta Woodhall used to be the family cook for the Calverson family, before she went off to work for a dickhead, called Linder Kane. She is an effing brilliant chef, who has ambitions of eventually owning her own restaurant some day.

Whilst Araminta’s catering for one of Kane’s notorious gaming parties, she runs into Griffin Calverson, (our hero) her best friend’s brother, with whom, she’d already had a run-in with, on several occasions.

Griffin wants to get into Araminta’s knickers, and she, his underpants, but because of her upbringing and her heritage (she’s mixed race, erm half-caste, aargh shit, she’s half-white, and half-black … or something), she’s reluctant to do the nasty with him. (sigh)

It is on this same night that she discovers the true extent of Kane’s treachery and cruelty. Kane had been keeping Olivia, his mistress captive in the house, and beating her senseless, whenever he felt she was getting out of line. When Araminta (shit I keep wanting to call her Ara) discovers Olivia, she vows to help her get away from Kane. (I’d have been tempted to leave the whiny cow)

Anyway, Araminta’s dickhead boss, Kane, starts being more of a twat than usual, and Araminta eventually leaves his employ, and Griffin is the one who ultimately helps her to escape him.

Araminta obviously thinks that Griffin has ulterior motives for coming to her aid, but in order to help Kane’s fragile mistress, Olivia, she reluctantly accepts his protection.

Araminta fights her attraction tooth and nail, but she eventually give in to her baser instincts, and has a good old tumble between the sheets, with Griffin. (It took long enough dammit!)

Although Araminta loves him, she vows that she will not make the same mistakes as her mother, so becoming his mistress is out of the question as far as she’s concerned, thus it’s up to Griffin to prove that he truly loves her.

My Verdict.

I found Somebody To Love quite hard to read, purely because Araminta got on my second tit. I think she was supposed to be portrayed as a strong woman, but she never really came across as being particularly strong. She came across as a woman, who seemed to let life and events dictate her actions.

I could understand that she didn’t want to be used and abused by Griffin, thus she kept him at arms length, but on the other hand, she went to work for a man, who wasn’t above murder, and beating women. What kind of fucked up logic is that? OK maybe she didn’t know he was a twat when she originally went to work for him, but I still couldn’t forgive her for staying with him for so long, and refusing to give in to the lovely Griff. Yeah, yeah, I know she she stayed for Olivia’s sake, blah blah effing blah..

I thought it was fairly obvious that Griffin was a decent bloke, plus he was rich, and quite frankly, she wasn’t, so why not just go for it? I guess I just wasn’t convinced by her motivation for not wanting to shag him senseless.

On the plus side, I liked Griffin. I liked the fact that he never tried to hide his feelings from Araminta. I hate the kind of conflict that has the lead characters playing push-me-pull-you, all the way through a damned book. There’s nothing guaranteed to piss me off, more than conflict that can be resolved with a conversation or two between the hero and the heroine.

The book itself was well written, (even if Araminta needed a good kicking or two), the plot was mildly interesting, and the chemistry between Araminta and Griffin was convincing, and had the heroine not been so wish-washy (yes Kate she was!), I would have enjoyed the book a lot more.

Overall, Somebody To Love was ok, but I wasn’t blown away by it.