Marie Ferrarella has written more than 200 books for Harlequin, and she's really got writing a good romance hero down pat. Eddie Montoya is the Perfect Man™. He's handsome, he's charming, he's hardworking, he loves small children and he's also capable of doing any jobs around the house which need doing because he's a competent part-time handyman.
The only problem with Eddie is that he has terrible taste in women. He's attracted to Tiffany, the heroine of this book, who unfortunately comes across as an absolute Grade A bitch. She's a stereotype; the Competitive Asian-American™, and absolutely everything has to be a competition where she is concerned.
Tiffany and Eddie were at teaching college together, and Tiffany took it as a personal affront that he was hard-working and smart and that she had to up her game to stay top of the class. She seems to take Eddie's entire existence as a personal affront. He's been working at her school for one day - ONE DAY - when she storms off plotting how to get him fired because she's convinced herself that he's somehow going to outdo her, in ways which are never quite specified.
In an actual quote from the book, Tiffany wonders "How did he always manage to turn things around to make them sound like he was the good guy no matter what the situation?"
I found myself saying aloud to the book "He is a good guy, Tiffany. Wow. Paranoid much?" She reminds me in several ways of my sister, who always manages to turn everything around to make herself out to be the victim, no matter what the situation, and because of this I was utterly unable to warm to her.
The book is well written, the characters are richly drawn and the situations feel very real. Unfortunately, I thought the heroine was absolutely horrible and undeserving of a happy ending with a hero as lovely as Eddie. I can't give it more than three stars.
Meant To Be Mine is available now in paperback and will be released in ebook form on April 1.
Disclaimer: I received this book for review through NetGalley.