Deborah Verlen "Debo @ 2009-11-22

Understood (Unbroken book 1)

$3.50

I'm assuming one of the reasons authors put their books on the Amazon Kindle for free is to create exposure for them as an author and to get a wider audience. Why then does someone like Maya Banks, whom I understand is an outstanding erotic romance writer, give potential readers a freebie that is average to poor quality?

Maybe, since I don't read this genre, I'm being harsh, but it seemed like the bare bones story was there only to raise this above a pornographic offering. The characters were terribly one dimensional and you really didn't get a sense of why the hero and heroine loved each other.

Jake loved Ellie whom he distanced himself from when she married his best friend. The marriage turns out to be horrifically abusive and Ellie ran to him for sanctuary after a particularly brutal beating. Jake shelters her and she divorces her husband. They reconnect romantically when Ellie has gotten drunk at a bar with the intent to sleep with any male in order to prove to herself she can sleep with Jake. How lame is this?

It bothers me when an author features an abused woman and she is miraculously cured of her sexual hang ups or fears because she falls into true love with the hero. It doesn't seem very realistic to me that if Ellie's husband consistently abused her and raped her that she'd be able to suddenly experience wild passion with Jake, the hero. One would think she'd be having flashbacks and more.

And, the ending when Ellie's ex-husband, a popular pro football player tells the world that he has found new love and he has come through Ellie being unfaithful (he lies) etc. and then he breaks down a day or so later and tells the world he realized upon seeing that interview how low he'd sunk and that she hadn't cheated, he lied, and he abused her and was quitting football etc. -- now really how realistic is this? This single scene kind of ruined the book for me as it was so unrealistic.