Gambling on Love was an interesting read for me.The main characters, Gary and Abe, spent most of the book at odds with each other. This usually annoys me in a romance novel, and to a certain extent, it did. Failure to communicate, old hurts, misunderstandings– all present and accounted for in this second chance at love story. For some reason I stuck with this book, even when I wasn’t sure I liked either character very much. Gary is complicated. I didn’t understand most of his life choices, they didn’t make sense to me, given his dominant nature. Abe didn’t understand Gary’s choices either, and it was a huge part of the ongoing conflict between the two men. On the other hand, it did inject a bit of realism into the story. This wasn’t a case of long lost lovers reunited and suddenly all the old hurts and disappointments vanish into thin air. These two were forced to discuss their past relationship, the years they’ve spent apart, and future plans. While that almost always led to sniping and snide comments, I did feel like I had a fully developed picture of both Gary and Abe, but didn’t feel a real connection to either character, although Abe was the more appealing of the two men. Maybe I liked him because he was less complicated, and he and I shared a confusion about Gary’s life and his motivation to fulfill his former lover’s last request. While Ms. Davitt did her best to convince me, that whole plot thread didn’t ring true to me. While it was necessary to the furtherance of the plot, I just couldn’t buy into it.

The affection and strong feelings between Gary and Abe were very believable, and are what saved the book for me. While I can’t say I loved their story, I did enjoy Ms, Davitt’s writing style, and thought this story was different enough to hold my attention.

Its been a long time since I read these books and to be honest I cannot recall what I thought of them at all.

Mare~Slitsread

2 Whiplash Stars!

I wanted to like this book but it didn't really happen.

This book felt all over the place with emotions of love/hate. I was starting to get whiplash from the turn of emotions. I wanted to love it. I liked the idea of it but it just didn't work for me.

Uh, how do I say this?

Those guys.... man. They were prickly as hell. And their attitudes (I can't even decide who got on my nerves more!) really drove me away. I love a good fight. Also really love a nice enemies to lovers kind of set up, which we sort of got here after the lovely beginning, set eleven years ago.

But something was off.

Even the angry sex left me dissatisfied.

The chemistry was zero, the dead lover coming up here and there was a mood killer and so on....

sigh

I know the author is pretty good at creating characters and those sexy times from a previous series I read, but something went wrong here. Not wrong exactly, I guess. Just didn't leave me happy and wanting more :(