Somatesthesia

This was the least enjoyable book I've read in awhile. I couldn't connect with any of the characters, which is a fatal flaw in a romance novel. The dialogue was wooden. Even though they both had long, long passages of introspection, every time they spoke, they talked about themselves and their backgrounds. Neither real people nor most fictional characters communicate that way.

The mystery was not interesting. If the villain had a motive beyond wealth, I didn't see it. The author didn't manage to flesh out any of the victims, beyond a vague “damn these rich people” kind of thing. Then, the mystery was pretty much wrapped up about halfway through. There wasn't anything left to make me keep reading, but I did anyway.

It was just very strangely paced throughout. I see from other reviews that some readers had issues with what actually happened between Connor and Devlin. I didn't mind that and thought it all could have worked, in a better book. But I really didn't understand why Devlin was so cruel to Connor at first. I think it was a major misstep not to set that scene in Devlin's PoV. Apparently, it had to do with his trust issues, but how am I guessing about this in a book where both the leads dissected every little social interaction?

The sex scenes were completely run-of-the-mill, yet the choice of language made me extremely uncomfortable. In closing, here's an ultra-romantic line from the book's last sex scene:

“Connor taking charge turned him on harder than a dose of Viagra, and Devlin planned to encourage it as much as possible.”