The Love Scam

This novel is basically an extended joke about tropes. As a story, it is not engaging and I could not have cared less about any of these stock characters or the things they do. It’s a shame this isn’t funny cause I guess it’s meant to be?

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher for review so at least I didn’t pay money for this.

Rake Tarbell has a problem and it's a big one. Somehow he finds himself in Venice, hungover and broke. The broke part is really problematic as he is a millionaire. A good looking and single millionaire. After falling into a canal he meets the mysterious, and beautiful, Claire Delaney who introduces him to Lillith who may or may not be his daughter. What follows is a week packed with charity work (filling Easter baskets with Peeps) mystery, danger, unanswered questions and romance. Can he survive it?This wonderfully told story is an absolute pleasure to read. It is witty, funny and populated with a marvelous cast of characters. The dialogue between Rake and his twin brother, Blake, is priceless. The narrative is well paced and engrossing. Filled with surprises and heart, this book is well worth reading. Highly recommended.I received a complimentary copy of this book from St. Martin's and NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are my own...

The Love Scam by MaryJanice DavidsonContemporary romantic comedy. Danger series, book 2. Best read in order. I didn’t read book 1 and for the most part was ok, but I got the feeling, especially towards the end that I was missing a connection.The writing style is humorous and very sarcastic. Every page, and every paragraph is heavily laced with internal character commentary or witty and snarky banter. At least through the first half of the book. Around 60%, POV began altering between Rake and Delaney. Prior was from Rake’s POV.Italian phrases or events or places were sometimes starred with an asterisk. The connecting definition was at the end of that specific chapter. A couple times it was to reference book 1. While nice to provide the translation or info, by the time I got to the end of the chapter, I had to figure out why I needed to know whatever it was.Overall, a complicated and amusing situational romantic comedy. Often humor filled and silly. Sentimental in the end with family connections made all around. Excerpt sample of writing style: “Are you yelling at your inner voice again?” “No,” he grumped. “Your pants are on fire, you liar liar.” And God, it sounded affectionate. Like when a normal woman would say “You’re so cute!” Wait, did he want a normal woman? No, he wanted Delaney. Wait, what? Wait. What?“Excerpt from The Love Scam by MaryJanice DavidsonI received a copy of this from NetGalley.

This was a fun romance. The author deliberately tried to get in as many romance tropes as she possibly could and even has an index of when each one appears. The story begins when a man named Rake Tarbell wakes up with a massive hangover in a hotel room. He feels awful and has no idea where he is. He also has no wallet. He stumbles out of his hotel room and finds himself falling into a canal which lets him know that he is in Venice. He is fished out of the canal only to find himself confronted by Claire Delaney who tells him that the child with her is his daughter Lillith. An unknown child is all he needs to make his horrible day even worse. But that isn't the end of it. Once Rake manages to find a place with free wi-fi, he learns that he is also broke. The millions he had are missing from all his accounts. He can do nothing but throw himself on Claire's mercy. Claire is keeping a number of secrets from him. She has a mysterious past and her present actions are filled with mystery too.This was a fun story. Romance fans will enjoy identifying all the tropes as they appear and be satisfied with a great romance along the way.

Fun and light hearted romance. Sarcastic banter and word play that is very entertaining. A riches to rags and back again to riches romance. It was a very enjoyable light read. Hacks and hits abound all in the pursuit of the big pipe dream. There is love, growing up and working for your keep. This is not a mushy gushy romance where they are falling all over each other. This romance is mixed with sarcasm, wit, humor and the nuclear option.

I am going to say this twice in this review since it seems that people are going to need reminding: "I have to say though, that this book is full of cliches and tropes and it has been done on purpose---please read the author's notes at the beginning of the book."I will update to a 'true' review just as soon as I read Danger, Sweetheart and then re-read The Love Scam. You really don't need to read Danger, Sweetheart first but I want to see if that will change my opinion of this book.I have to say though, that this book is full of cliches and tropes and it has been done on purpose---please read the author's notes at the beginning of the book. It was a bit of a mess at first until I got into the rhythm and remembered about the trope/cliche issue of the book but it ended up being an excellent mystery with (what was to me) a shocking conclusion. I really hope that this is turned into a small series.Oh, wait I don't have to write a "real" review LOL! Oh, wait-I already did -but I reserved the right to add to this if my re-read change anything!!!*ARC supplied by the publisher.

Full review posted at Reader's Edyn on 01/31/20Claire is quite secretive about everything involving Rake as well as herself. She has the upper hand because she actually knows more than she’s letting on to and the longer she can delay Rake from discovering the truth, the better things will be for all of them. The billionaire playboy won’t be but a memory of a short time spent in Venice when all is completed. Except the man she believes she has pegged turns out to be anything but. The image thrust in the public’s face merely a facade. In a short amount of time, as she begins to form a delicate bond with Rake, she quickly finds herself in danger of much more than anticipated at the start of this journey. Her heart could very well be lost to her when they inevitably part ways; her resistance toward Rake rapidly crumbling. As long as she focuses on the importance of this Venice encounter, she will be able to hold her ground and resist his distracting charms…maybe.Rake is a rich playboy. Rather than embrace responsibility, he shirks anything serious; running through life full of sass, booze, and women. His twin brother is the polar opposite and constantly taking the form of an annoying little voice in Rake’s head, admonishing him for the choices he makes as he flits through life with no purpose. After one drunken night of…unknown…Rake finds himself in Venice with no ID, no possessions, and no money. His bank has been drained of millions. The only clue available to him comes in the form of Claire. A conundrum to be sure, initially, he can’t quite seem to figure her out. There’s also the slight hiccup that she’s toting around a highly observant and intelligent girl who she claims is Rake’s daughter. Challenge accepted. He’s going to get to the bottom if this situation. Claire may think she holds all of the cards in Rake’s momentary loss of – everything, really – but he’s just as intelligent and observant as the young Lillith, if not more. Preferring to play the role he’s been cast in given his fast life, Rake soon unravels the mystery. Not only that, he plans to put his own spin on it and Claire will certainly hold a place in the new reality he chooses to create. He’s just got to make his plea believable and trust that she has had enough time getting to know his true self – one he never reveals to anyone.OK guys … all I can say is that I I sincerely hope that between now and August, this book gets some serious edits. My review copy is an ARC, so some things can be forgiven as ARCs frequently have a few issues. Not near this many typically, but generally speaking, you can be a little less stringent on editing errors within an ARC. There is so much wrong with this fantastic plot. It’s maddening!The first thing that I immediately disliked was that Rake’s twin brother is named Blake. No. Stop it. My first impression was, “Are you kidding me?” Second, there are so many internal monologues going on. Some of the pages appear as though the keyboard barfed italics and refused to revert back to the standard font. Due to this issue, much of the writing became confusing. Many times, I was sure that the text appeared to be an inner thought, but had been spoken instead. And vice versa. There are also several side comments contained within parenthesis. The moral of the story here is to make up your mind. Write the inner monologue as part of the scene instead of creating so much separation. I could have read this book twice as quickly had I not been forced to keep track of where the text was attempting to take me. Third, whatever the descriptions are, they should remain consistent. Rake’s initial description of Claire did not bring me to believe that he found her attractive. In fact, one portion of the description included that she had big feet. What? The? Hell? Not a couple of chapters later, he’s describing her as gorgeous. By this time, I’m seriously contemplating stamping a humongous DNF on this book. The only thing that kept me going was the fact that it was an ARC and I argued with myself that I was being too hard on the plot due to a large percentage of my complaints encircling…yep. Editing. I persevered. Fourth, Claire is clearly annoyed by everything Rake. His dashing looks, his blasé attitude, his money, his inability to take anything serious. Yep. Everything Rake annoys her. All of a sudden, we find her giggling at something he’s said or done. This ends up happening several times. But giggling? She’s clearly some sort of bad-ass investigator. Maybe. Giggling just took her badassery down a notch. I didn’t care for it at all. Fifth would be the language and by language I am referring to the Italian and whatever else is used. Now this would not regularly annoy me, but the fact that the author felt the need to translate what was being said, did. In fact, several chapters have footnotes explaining either the translation or something else. For example, stating that something that occurred is referring to a previous book. Huh? Never in all of the books I have read have I come across an author that actually referred to a previous book. Adding to the muddle, if this story is part of a series, it is not indicated anywhere. I mean nowhere. I searched and I couldn’t find it. I didn’t even turn up the book the footnote referred to. Aggravating! Sixth was the fact that Claire – I mean Delaney – she doesn’t go by Claire and pretty much all of the text refers to her as Delaney. What? But I digress. Claire leaves Lillith with Rake, not even knowing for sure if he is her father. I didn’t at all care for this action. It was later explained, but still didn’t sit well with me; especially given how Claire feels about Rake at the time. Ugh. I was literally about to end the book right there. This thing has fifty-three chapters! Fifty-three! And some of them are maybe ½ a page. Why? I don’t know. All mentioned thus far occurred by the conclusion of chapter thirteen. Thirteen you guys! And you know what kept me going after that? No lie. I was literally about to shut off the e-reader. It was the last flipping line of the chapter. I’m not even kidding! So maybe start reading at chapter fourteen at this point. Blessedly, once I got past those first thirteen chapters, everything got so much better. There was still a bunch of the editing, italics, parenthesis, etc. occurring. However, it was much less than initially. So those are the problems.Here’s what I liked. This book wasn’t at all what I expected. Aside from all of the confusing aspects, it was generally a very good plot. The jocular dialogue and thoughts were quite entertaining. Lillith was unlike any child I have read about and I enjoyed her out-of-the-box character development. I wouldn’t say I became overly attached to Claire and Rake. However, by the time Rake put in his two cents as to what was occurring over the course of their time in Venice, I fell just a little bit in love with him. With the way he handled everything and his solution to each curve ball thrown at him, I was impressed. Want to know the dumbest thing? Corresponding to Rake’s disaster in Venice, Blake is going through his own turmoil. We glimpse a bit of it as Rake communicated with Blake. Shockingly, I became curious about what Blake was enduring! What? I’m not even sure how that happened. I’m really not. I suppose in some small way, despite all of the glaring snags, somehow this author got to me. For that, I have to give her kudos. Pretty freaking amazing given my determination not to finish the book originally. Or crazy. Maybe both. I am a bit dismayed that Ms. Davidson has so many published books and yet the ARC has so much formatting difficulty. It looks as though many of her books are a part of one series and involve vampires. So perhaps this is a new writing journey into less than uncharted territory. I am unsure. Come to think of it, I don’t know how much my review will help anyone. But this is the way I see it currently. An ARC is not the final copy. If I am not honest about the negative areas, then I shouldn’t be reviewing. And if I let everything remain in the negative without speaking to those instances that I ultimately enjoyed, then I am doing everyone a disservice. From this review I am taking away the following: The ARC needs a lot of work and likely will not bring this author a new following; might actually cause her to lose some of her current following. However, with the adjustments made – and I find it truly unfathomable to entertain the thought that there wouldn’t be a deep edit prior to publishing in August – it’s actually quite an entertaining read. If you are a reader and you don’t tend to review, then just wait for the final copy to be released later in the year. That way, hopefully, none of the above problems I encountered will become your burden. If the book does not get cleaned up, then I wouldn’t come back. Despite my curiosity in the companion book (if there is one), there are just too many issues that interfere with my reading enjoyment to allow me to knowingly go through anything like this again.Kindle version provided by NetGalley/St. Martin’s in exchange for an honest review.