Desperate by Katerina Winters

I’m sure many readers can relate to this age old story.  You have tons of books on your TBR list.  You can’t—shouldn’t—add anymore.  But suddenly there is pops up on your feed.  The words FREE DOWNLOAD look up at you from your Instagram feed, Facebook page, emailed newsletter, etc.  You know you shouldn’t click the button but you can’t help it.  It’s taunting you.  Staring up at you, begging for a click.  And then you give in and look with delicious guilt as the novel downloads onto your Kindle.

That’s the story of how I ended up with Desperate by Katerina Winter.

Desperate by Katerina Winter is a contemporary love/hate (emphasis on the hate) romance novel.  I love love/hate novels.  There’s something about all that hate turning to unbridled passion that gets me all in a tizzy.  Desperate though, if I’m being honest, takes the hate part of things farther than most novels.  If the hate part is your favorite part (sort of guilty) then you’re going to love this.  I don’t know if I’ve ever read a romance novel where the male character despises the female character quite this much.  I got decently far into the book and started to wonder whether Gabriel was ever going to get over his dislike for Salene or whether I was going to spend the entire book simply hoping they’d screw.  No worries though, eventually they get to the romance.

In Desperate we are introduced to Gabriel and Salene. Always calm, gracious, and collected Salene Agnew’s perfectly mapped out life-plan has come to a crashing halt. With no money and nowhere to go Salene finds herself standing at the door of her worst enemy with all that is left of her worldly possessions.   From the moment Salene and Gabriel Breslin met, tempers flared and hate burned deep, Salene’s fierce independent aura directly clashed with Gabriel’s misogynistic arrogance. Desperate to get her life back together Salene will have to endure a man who is cold as ice. 

The minute Salene walked through his door with that sharp tongue and those honey brown eyes, Gabriel was ready to send her packing—until he realized how much fun he could have at her expense. Agreeing to let her stay Gabriel has every intention of making her life a living hell. What he wasn’t prepared for was her to do the same. No woman could get under his skin and enrage him like Salene could. With each passing day, Gabriel could feel his hard earned control slipping towards his prim and proper house guest. Just how far will their hatred run until one of them breaks? 

Gabriel isn’t a sweetheart.  Or even that nice of a guy really.  He’s sort of an asshole.  He’s also cocky, arrogant, and filled with anger and jealousy.  There were a handful of times where I was wondering if he had any sort of redeeming qualities really, but thankfully the author saw fit to include some.  If you’re particularly sensitive to guys flying off the handle for minor indiscretions and general dickiness from your male characters then consider this your warning.  I happen to be a fan of the rather sexist 1980s romance novel subgenre so I didn’t really blink an eye, but some might find the story grating.

Salene isn’t a perfect person either.  Her naivety is both charming and annoying.  She’s guilty of assumption after assumption.  I enjoyed her desire to exert her independence, but I loathed her inability to stand up for herself.  But that’s the problem isn’t it?  I both want the woman to submit to her man and punch him in the face.  I live a complicated, hypocritical life.

I won’t say that this novel is perfect.  The dialogue gets a little forced in some places, it’s drama after drama after drama (which I love but not everyone else does), and it’s missing some information that I would have loved to know.  Not necessary information, but I would have enjoyed knowing more about Salene and her ex-best friend, Gabriel and his ex-wife, what the hate looked like between Gabriel and Salene in the beginning, what Gabriel’s (SPOILER) odd sex habit was supposed to be (because if it was simply that he’s a little domineering in bed then either I’m reading way too much erotica or that was supremely disappointing, even though their sex was very hot).

Though, I don’t supposed it’s a terribly bad thing that the worst part about this book was that I wanted to know more.  I’d say that’s rather close to a compliment.  Either way the book is still free for a short time, so why don’t you decide for yourself by picking up a Kindle copy here.