Anytime, Darlin’

Book Title: Anytime, Darlin’
Author: Julia Barrett
Publisher: Cerridwen Press
Publisher URL: http://www.cerridwenpress.com/
ISBN: 9781419917998
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Nymph Rating: 3.5 Nymphs
Literary Nymphs Reviewer: Sphinx Minx

Runaway Devlin Barre is found hiding in a K-Mart unconscious, bruised and battered. She clings to life, only because rescue worker Jake McKenna holds her hand, calming her and promising safety.

Her family had been killed in a car wreck a year earlier. Now she has been raped and beaten by an uncle, interested in acquiring her fortune. William Masters is also a murderer and, for now at least, he has fled the country.

Jake is 24 and Devlin is 17 when they meet under these terrible circumstances. Yet their feelings smolder until they are reunited more than four years later. The sex is hot, hot, hot. The trauma of rape evidently did nothing to hinder Devlin’s performance or desire.

Barrett is an excellent writer and easily draws the reader into her plot. Yet the amount of coincidence here is a distraction for me. The emergency room doctor just happened to live next door to the victim years ago. Jake’s scheming ex-girlfriend, Janice, just happens to meet Devlin at the mall. And Janice’s mother just happens...

Devlin is extremely capable and self-sufficient at 22. Everybody has lots of money for last minute plane trips and Jake has lots of comp time he can take from his job. So while I enjoyed the book, much of it just didn’t ring true for me.