Book Review: Crime and Passion

Crime and Passion 

by 

Chantel Rhondeau

This book is a mystery romance book leaning more towards mystery throughout the book. You start off the book with the main character, Madeline Scott, finding a dead body on the beach. Well Chantel Rhondeau wasted no time and it was non-stop for the rest of the book. It literally took me less than a day to read this book because I couldn't put it down. Now while it was a great read it wasn't all peachy.

There were times where I was extremely frustrated with the back and forth relationship between the two main characters, Madeline Scott and Officer Donovan Andrews. I wanted to scream with his crude bad boy image and her weakness to it. I know C Rhondeau was trying to make Madeline seem like a strong woman, but it was really evident that she wasn't. It wasn't endearing though, for me and my opinion it was pretty darn annoying. If she were a friend of mine it would get old pretty quickly. I'd be rolling my eyes at her, "Do you think he really likes me? A like-like and not like the women that he bedded within a day? I can change him, right?" No, you can't change him! As strong as she was for overcoming her own past issues it was totally over shadowed by her low self esteem. I wanted her to either own her decision in her relationship with Donovan, or lack thereof, or she needed to completely walk away.

Now for Donovan...oh he is definitely a man that I would totally hate. He is like a male peacock strutting around trying to impress the females. Sure he opens up and you find out he has had some bad times in his life. Okay not just bad, but pretty darn horrible yet it still doesn't convince me that he is a good man. Now he may be a good person, but to me he would make a horrible boyfriend. All throughout the book the things he did and said were totally unacceptable. When he automatically moved his clothes into Madeline's house my first thoughts were...how is that okay? How is she not saying anything about that!?

As frustrated as I was with the romance portion of the book there was never a moment where I wanted to stop reading. Sure the flip flopping between the two was a little annoying. Sure their sweet endearments were a bit over the top. But Chantel Rhondeau kept the story moving forward which didn't give me the chance to truly "get over the book".  Once I got annoyed with the relationship, boom something else happened which carried you into a different direction. There weren't too many racy moments in the book, but a lot of lovey dovey "snippets".  I wouldn't recommend you letting your 10yr old read this, but if an older teen got their hands on it I wouldn't be too worried. The mystery definitely gives you a chance to take a breather from Madeline's and Donovan's up and down relationship. I did kind of know what was going on, but didn't have the whole picture. So by the end of the book I was thoroughly surprised at who the murderer was and why they did it. I think if you really like crime or romance books then this is definitely a book you should pick up.

You can check out more from Chantel Rhondeau HERE at her website.
Also if you'd like to purchase Crime and Passion you can do it HERE.

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.