Karen has struggled to overcome the legacy of an abusive family, making her
way in the world alone. After leaving her battered mother in the hospital
one desperate night, she finds herself drowning her sorrows in a hotel bar,
certain she will never allow herself to love and trust any man, but
especially not one like her own sorry father. Still, when she sees a
handsome blonde stranger across the bar, she can’t resist his allure,
spending the evening forgetting her troubles in his warm company.
Nick has his own demons to deal with, but they suddenly don’t see quite so
difficult while enjoying the pleasure of the lovely stranger’s company.
When the evening wanes, leaving Karen unfit to drive in her rather
inebriated condition, she impulsively invites Nick to share a hotel room
with her for one night, never imaging their one night of passion will change
their lives forever…
When Dr. Nick Chandler accidentally meets Karen again eleven months later in
his emergency room, he finds just how different their lives are when he lays
eyes on the baby he never realized they created that night…
After reading the synopsis and excerpt for Shonna Brannon’s novel In
the Nick of Time, I expected to love this story. The plot was
interesting, the story was sweet, and the two main characters were very
likable.
My problems with this story were in the consistency of the main characters,
some of the dialogue (especially the internal dialogue from several
characters), the utter silliness of the primary villain, and the progression
of the romance between Nick Chandler and Karen Whitmire.
Both Nick and Karen were fickle with their own feelings – at one moment
certain they could not possibly fathom having a relationship with each other
and the next moment the same character is thinking about the relationship
they are in, with no logical advancement for the romance, no internal
struggle to come to grips with their growing feelings, etc. Instead, the
relationship progresses by whim, with each of them bouncing back and forth
between believing they want a relationship, are in a relationship, or could
never be in a relationship depending on how it suits the scene’s needs at
the moment. Properly done, this back and forth internal conflict could
create riveting personal angst for the couple, but instead the pair came off
as romantically schizophrenic.
Much of the dialogue was somewhat trite, with the internal thought processes
for both the couple and the main villain suffering from this. The
‘mysterious’ person stalking Shonna and Nick, however, was the most
consistent example of this. While this character was a great plot point,
providing an external antagonist to the budding relationship, the culprit
instead came off as silly and annoying. The threats sent to Karen were
ineffectual, and the identity of this character was revealed far too early
to build any real suspense in the story.
While Ms. Brannon had some great ideas in this story, and exhibited a nice
imagination, the execution of the story fell somewhat flat. While I cannot
recommend this particular story in its present form, this is an author that
warrants revisiting again with her future releases as her writing skills
develop.
Reviewed by Jennifer
