Wounded Hearts by Liz Andrews

TITLE: Wounded Hearts
AUTHOR: Liz Andrews
PUBLISHER: Loose Id
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 21k)
GENRE: BDSM erotic romance
COST: $4.99

Erin Riley is eagerly awaiting the return of her fiancé, Patrick O’Rourke, from his deployment in the Middle East when she receives an e-mail breaking up their engagement. Though she fears it’s because of her weight gain, she decides to pretend it didn’t happen and moves into his apartment in anticipation of his return. The reality is colder than she expects. Patrick tries to brush her off, but when she refuses to go, his true reasons are unleashed, in the form of rougher sex and secrets of the war he doesn’t want to talk about.

It’s always refreshing to read romances where the heroine isn’t a size two. That was the biggest reason I picked this one up. But after the callous and cold break-up poor Erin was supposed to suffer through, I had the unmistakable urge to pick up my computer and shake it in frustration. The way Patrick chose to break their engagement was cruel, and she was hurt really badly from it. I was so angry with him, that it took a long, long time for me not to despise him or to feel frustrated with Erin for being such a wimp about it. Patrick had the potential of being a very tragic hero, but the author’s writing style glosses over any depth he could have had.

The sex itself, once it got going, was pretty hot, though. While he’s been away, Patrick has learned that he likes his sex rough and his women submissive, and Erin is prepared to do anything to keep him from leaving. The author walks a fine edge with the BDSM. There’s spanking, and bondage, and nipple clamps, and while it’s not too extreme, it’s hard enough to merit a real kink. The sex, really, is the best part about the book.

Maybe the story’s length is what keeps it from being anything more than a mild diversion. If it had been longer, I’d hope that the author would have given Patrick the room to explore his trauma, instead of just springing it in one chunk on the reader toward the end. It would have given her more room to allow Erin’s reaction to be smoother and realistic. I think the story suffers from the same thing as a lot of the erotic romances out there right now. Authors think we’re only interested in the sex, and the rest of the story gets shortchanged. A truly great erotic romance never forgets that the story still comes first. We just don’t get shortchanged on the sex when it happens. This story is not one of those great ones.

If you’re looking for some hot sex with an unconventional heroine, this might be what you want. I haven’t given up on this author; there’s potential here, but maybe not with this story for me.

Readability	7/10 – Fairly simplistic, but mostly error free.
Heroine	7/10 – Nice seeing a woman who’s not a stick, but some of her flipflopping annoyed me
Hero	7/10 – Lots of potential that doesn’t quite make it.
Entertainment value	5/10 – The sex was hot while I was reading it, but the story itself was very forgettable.
World building	5/10 – I’m disappointed that the depth of the war trauma wasn’t explored further.
TOTAL:	31/50