I’m honestly not sure who to blame for the current trend I’m seeing in romance novels for bossy, controlling heroes. That sort of romance hero has been around since long before Christian Grey, but perhaps the overwhelming popularity of 50 Shades has created a resurgence? Whatever the reason, I don’t care for it, and Marco from Hot Shot is a classic example.
Let me give you a few samples from the book. The first one, you can read for yourself; it’s on page 5 of the book and is included in the first 10% sample you can read on Amazon without purchase.
He clearly regarded her as an airheaded blond bimbo, flirting with her but also mansplaining things to her that made her grit her teeth.
Honestly, I’m not sure there’s any way back from being a mansplainer. Fortunately, Marco doesn’t do much of it during the book, though he does spend a whole lot of his time objectifying Carrie in his mind, and treating her as though he’s the only one who knows what’s best for her - EVEN BEFORE THEY START DATING.
There was a particularly egregious example early in the book. Carrie had been out on a photoshoot and gone to a club after with some friends. They are drinking, dancing and generally having a good time when Marco arrives and promptly puts a massive downer on the proceedings by telling Carrie that she’s had enough to drink, grabbing her hand and dragging her onto the dance floor, and then when she chooses to dance with someone else, comes up with the following, really SPECIAL behaviour.
Oh hell no. She wasn’t dancing with anyone but him. (...) He curved his hand around Carrie’s upper arm and turned her away from the dips**t she was dancing with.
“Sorry man,” Marco said to the guy. “My girl’s not dancing with anyone else.”
Remember, at this point they aren’t dating. They haven’t even KISSED. She’s already told him that she doesn’t want to sleep with him, that “I don’t hate you,” she said dismissively. “I tolerate you.”
If a guy treated me like that, my next move would be to call the bouncers over and have him kicked out of the club for harassing me. If he carried on, I’d get a restraining order.
I could go on. I could tell you about Marco’s special name for his private parts. In fact, I’m going to, just to share the sentence that made me throw up a little bit in my mouth.
They were going to go home and do the sex thing, while he was going to go home and do the hand thing with Mr. Big while thinking about Carrie’s sweetly bouncing breasts.
That’s right. Mr. Big. And Carrie. But this isn’t Sex In The City; this is revoltingly objectifying and everything about Marco horrified me even BEFORE I realized that Carrie was going to give up her dream to stay with him.
This is a well-written and edited book; I didn’t find a single typo or grammatical error, and if you particularly like alpha-A-hole heroes, you may absolutely love it.
I HATED it.
One star.
If you're really keen on bossy controlling heroes, you can find Hot Shot here.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book for review through NetGalley.