Wednesday, December 9, 2015

#BookReview: I HEARD A RUMOR by Cheris Hodges

I didn’t read the first book in the Rumor series, Rumor Has It, but the author provides enough background that it’s not really necessary to do so unless you’d like to. In Rumor Has It, Chante Britt, an up and coming attorney at a Charlotte law firm, falls for congressional candidate, Robert Montgomery. Robert’s indiscretions with ladies of the night leaves Chante humiliated not only at work, but in the media. When Robert tells the media that Chante has forgiven him and will be joining him on his new quest to become mayor of Charlotte, the southern belle dips out for some quiet time and recovery with her nana in South Carolina.

Stella got her groove back and so did nana. By the time Chante arrives on her door, she’s setting sail on a cruise with her long time “friend” turned lover and her house is being renovated. Instead of hanging with her favorite girl, Chante finds herself at a cozy bed and breakfast where she runs across Zach Harrington, the perfect distraction from all of the chaos in her life.

Zach Harrington also came to South Carolina for a break from the scandal in his life. He’s not looking for love. In fact, after dealing with his crazy soon to be ex-wife, it’s safe to say that getting involved with any woman is far down on his list of things to do. When Chante walks into his hotel’s restaurant, all bets are off.

I Heard a Rumor skips the typical cat and mouse games you see in most romance novels. From the time they meet, the spark is ignited between Chante and Zach and, while Chante is a bit resistant at the beginning, that only lasts a few hours. But they’re grown and as Mary Jane Paul says, “grown people are going to do what grown people do.” I appreciated the lack of cat and mouse, but I could have done without so many sex scenes. I understand that a lot of people read romance novels for this exact purpose; I’m not one of them.

I’m also nitpicky about details, so I found myself asking, “girl, what?” when Hodges described an outfit Zach was wearing as a sleeveless undershirt (i.e., wife beater) and linen pants for a night out. Do men wear that? I can’t envision any form of that ensemble that doesn’t sound tacky as hell. What restaurant are you strolling into looking like that?

I also had a problem with timing. Zach’s assistant, Tia, was pregnant with twins. In one chapter she delivered the babies. In the next chapter, which was supposed to be a week later, Zach called and assigned her tasks. Ma’am! The woman just pushed out two babies the week before. She’s not working. She’s not even thinking about working. Perhaps if Zach owned a small, one man business that might make sense, but he owned a big company. A temp or floater from another department would have been filling in for Tia. She definitely wouldn’t be answering calls about anything unrelated to formula, diapers and getting some sleep.

If you can overlook minor details like that, and I suspect most people can, give I Heard a Rumor a try. The secondary characters are entertaining and Hodges has done her research on both the North and South Carolina locales. If nothing else, you’ll find yourself longing for the food and beaches mentioned throughout the book.






368p.
Published: November 2015
Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher, opinions are my own.

Amazon | B & N | Book Depository |  IndieBound

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