Trusting Hearts (The Heart Series) by Shannon Donahue

At first glance, this is a fairly straight forward story. A woman deeply in love with her husband has decided to divorce him for repeatedly cheating on her. He doesn't want to let her go, but until backed into a corner, won't admit just how long he's been seeing the other woman.  Donahue does an excellent job of portraying just how angry Rachel Rossini is about her husband's cheating.

There is a lot of anger in this story, maybe too much. Rachel blows up at the slightest provocation throughout the book. Her lawyer, Carson Licciano, is her high school sweetheart who also happens to be a good friend of her husband. There is definitely potential for trouble here. Adding to the mix, she also has a long distance relationship going with Dr Colin Hill.

This has the potential to be a great story, but for me, the author has missed the mark. Her use of tenses in much of the narrative made for awkward reading. The scenes with Carson felt contrived rather than natural. As her lawyer, he recommends laying low and not pursuing another relationship. However, it doesn't take long for him to "give in" to his old feelings for Rachel and start rekindling the old relationship. Vinnie continues to press Rachel to take him back because he knows she still loves him. When the papers are served, he refuses to sign, forcing the decision to take the divorce proceedings to trial.

I rarely comment on intimate scenes in books. In the case of this book, these parts fare no better than the rest. They are choppy and rushed as though the characters were back in high school None of the sentiment the characters claim to feel for each other comes through in the narrative. This book additionally suffers from the occasional misspelled word and punctuation problems.

I was truly prepared to enjoy this book. I like stories where the woman gets back her own when leaving a bad relationship. While none of the problems with this book are individually severe, cumulatively, they make for a less than enjoyable reading experience. Had the book been properly edited for flow, content and smoothed out the rough edges, I would have happily given three stars.

I was gifted a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. 2 stars