Review: Mystery Man by Kristen Ashley

Mystery Man
(Dream Man #1)
by Kristen Ashley
Publisher: Forever
Publication date: Dec. 11, 2012
Genre: Romance
Rating:

Night time is the right time…

Gwendolyn Kidd has met the man of her dreams. He’s hot, he’s sexy, and what started as a no-names-exchanged night of passion has blossomed into a year and a half-long pleasure fest. Sure, it’s a little strange that he only appears in her bed at night, but Gwen is so sure he’s the one, she just can’t turn him away…

Hawk Delgado knows more about Gwen than she could ever imagine. She’s gorgeous, headstrong, and skittish about relationships. But Hawk is facing his own demons, demons that keep him from connecting with anyone. Yet when Gwen is drawn into Denver’s lethal underground scene, Hawk’s protective nature comes out full force. The problem is, when Gwen gets a dose of Hawk’s Alpha attitude in the daylight, she’s not so sure he’s the one anymore….

Okay. Let me make sure I’m understanding this. So, you hook up with some dude at the bar and have a drunken one-night stand. Except, for a year and a half after that he breaks into your house in the middle of the night to ravish you. You don’t know his name. You know nothing about him. But, he’s the one for you. He’s your mystery man.Uh, say what?! o_O?

I gotta be honest, their relationship was a tough pill to swallow. Not only was their year and a half sexcapades extremely weird and creepy, but the controlling “alpha male” aspect was nothing new and didn’t warm me up to him. Let alone all the “baby” this and “baby” that talk. I mean, Hawk runs a tight ship with his crew, knows how to aim to kill, doesn’t take crap from no one, but the only thing he can say to his lady is “baby”. I don’t know why, but the overuse of that word really bothered me and made me want to claw my eyes out.

The premise of the story is pretty good, though. I mean, Gwen has this mystery man in her life who just so happens to be some badass mofo who can handle business. When Gwen’s sister’s hot mess of a life puts Gwen into some heat with some really bad, nasty guys… her mystery man steps up and takes charge of her protection. I mean, what’s not to love? There’s family drama, bad guys, hot guys, and a heroine that doesn’t purposefully put herself into danger… it just seems to find her thanks to her sister.

With that being said, I had a lot of problems with this story. Now don’t get me wrong, I still continued to read it, but there were a lot of things that were messed up about this story. Obviously, the whole not knowing your sex partner who breaks into your house in the middle of the night for a booty call thing was beyond creepy. Having unprotected sex with said man, and then later finding out he had a Mon-Sun scheduled rotation of women. Oh, and realizing that that same guy not only did a background check on you, but bugged/put up cameras in your house and had people following and monitoring you during over all this time. None of that strikes you as odd and maybe NOT okay? But I guess it’s fine because he’s hot. Which might set him apart if it weren’t for the fact that the heroine was attracted to every male character in the story and they her. Really? You have cops, Motorcycle gang leaders, your best friend, and the guy you’ve been sleeping with all panting after you? Then to have her check them out and flirt with them… yeah, no! The lackluster writing and story telling left a lot to be desired. And if I’m being completely honest, I’m still really annoyed with the insane overuse of pet names.

I had read this story because I really wanted to read Dream Maker which is a spin-off of her previous series, and didn’t want to be in the dark about other characters or story lines. However, I’ve read a handful of books by this author, and let’s just say that I should cut my losses at this point. We aren’t all going to like the same things or the same authors. This author seems to be loved by many, but her writing just isn’t my cup of tea.