BENEATH THE SURFACE by M. A. Stacie

Beneath the Surface‏ by M.A. Stacie


Book provided by NetGalley for an honest review.

Dale Porter gets a job working for Taylor Reese at the company he runs with his brother Kyran, after finding her best friend in bed with her boyfriend and another woman. Kyran and Taylor both have their issues based on the fact that they weren't raised by their emotionally and most often physically absent father. Kyran turns to bare-knuckle fighting in a local club, where Dale's brother works. When Kyran first meets her, he's immediately taken with her and territorial over her. They start a sex-only affair, keeping everyone they know in the dark. But it soon becomes more for Dale. At the same time, she notices that things are quite right with Taylor. She asks Kyran about it, but he is always reluctant to discuss his brother or their relationship.

When Dale slips and tells Kyran she loves him, he tells her he can't tell her what she needs to hear and decides the sex-only relationship won't work for her anymore. At the same time Taylor spirals out of control and is found half dead from a drug overdose. Kyran can't deal with his personal life falling apart with both his brother and Dale. He starts fighting more and doesn't care if he gets hurt.

Dale's brother Trace tells Kyran where she's run off to and he goes to her to tell her he loves her.

This book was just this side of being okay. There just seemed to be something missing. Something that could have tipped it over and made it really good. I felt as if the story rushed over some things and didn't delve more into things that would have been spectacular. Like when Dale realized what Taylor could have been capable of and that not only did they hire her to work for him, but his brother, who she'd been sleeping with, didn't warn her what he could potentially do. I think they should have hired a guy to work for him. And why weren't they more concerned about a possible lawsuit? Because they had gotten away with paying the last person off.

I also thought that her relationship with her brother was confusing. My assumption is that Trace is older, but they have different last names. Though they have the same father. But she didn't go love with her father and brother until her mother, basically left her. So did her father have an affair with her mother while he was with Trace's mother. How was Trace living with the father, ets. just confusing to me.

And then the the names are terrible. How can one some be named something so strange as Kyran, but then his brother's name is so normal as Taylor. There's not explanation of how to pronounce Kyran's name until she starts calling him Ky. Dale seems like a guys name.

I like the idea of the story, just the execution was off for me.

View all my reviews