Breathless
Maria Luis
A Love Serial
Contemporary Romance
A hot and steamy novella
I picked this up after I listened to Maria on a podcast with Mark Dawson and she intrigued me enough to want to read it.
She wrote this novella week-by-week with her readers selecting the direction of the next chapter. A clever idea and I wanted to find out if it worked ... AND in my judgement - absolutely.
The story follows Jake, a typical Alpha and Claire a jobbing waitress working in Jake's family restaurant and their subsequent romance.
As expected this is a formulaic storyline which appeals to those who love this type of genre, so my critique is really around how well Maria writes and manages to build tension, both which I believe she achieves in this short novella.
The sex is hot, hot, hot! (clean sex and not kinky, but I still wouldn't give this to your Granny), so pure escapism and even in the shortened storyline Maria manages to build in a few unexpected twists and curves in Jake and Claire's journey.
The only reason I held back on giving the final half a star, is a personal critique of the storyline which I would like Maria to see as a challenge. It irked me that Claire had to have a damaged past in order to 'need' to be rescued by Jake. I haven't read anymore Maria Luis novels as yet, but why do we always have to make our heroines damaged in order to be metaphorically rescued? I appreciate that this may be slightly unfair as the readers technically chose the direction of the story but still, it's an old formula - and I think you could stretch yourself Maria and find a different dynamic for the premise of a future story.
Having said all of that, as an introduction into Maria's style, this is a well-written, hot and very steamy and perfect novella.
