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Sadie
Nelson has not had much luck when it comes to love. She’s at a
dead-end, no-fun
kind of job and is hoping something or someone will come along to
change her
life. When she meets Gil McGann, a
Hollywood Producer at a book fair, Sadie’s life is changed drastically. Maybe she should have been careful about what
she wished for…
Gil whisks
Sadie off to fun and frolic in the sun, where in mere days, she
believes she is
in love with him and loves the lavish life in which he treats her. But
then the
good-looking Tavis Jones catches Sadie’s eye and yet she has no real
problems,
like fall in love with him, since he’s gay…or is he?
With two
men who distract her to no end, Gil’s wife who won’t give him up –
though they
are separated, and decisions she knows she must make, Sadie might just
be
wishing that her old, boring life back in England was all the
excitement she
really needed. What will Sadie decide about the future and whom she
plans to
spend it with?
The Sweetest Taboo by Carole Matthews packs
a lot of
drama into one package. While I have enjoyed Ms. Matthews work in the
past,
this one left me disappointed and it was a struggle to finish it. I never felt connected on any level with the
characters and found that this read like a “B movie.”
None of the characters had me believing in
anything they said or did, which made their romances, and I use that
term
lightly, cold and unaffective.
Sadie was a
character who did have the potential to be a tough and great heroine,
but Ms.
Matthew’s did her a disservice in not digging in and getting right into
whom
Sadie really was. Her use for Gil to spend lavishly on her was a sad
example of
the type of heroine Sadie was portrayed to be.
The men, Tavish and Gil, I found to be even weaker
characters than
Sadie, which rounded out the complete demise of this story for me. Gil couldn’t stand up to his ex and allowed
her – another female – to ply him like a violin. Tavish,
well for me, all I could envision
with him was his sexuality, but that doesn’t make a man, and it was
really all
I had to go on.
One woman,
two men and a whole lot of drama, make The
Sweetest Taboo a disappointing tale and I can’t recommend it to
readers
who desire more than this book has to offer when selecting contemporary
romances to buy.
Reviewed by Tracey West
for The Road
to Romance
August 30th,
2004
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