My Valentine by Annie Dean

TITLE: My Valentine
AUTHOR: Annie Dean
PUBLISHER: Loose Id
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 82k)
GENRE: Reincarnation erotic romance
COST: $ 7.99

Two couples, separated by time, bound by destiny. In England, 1821, Lady Beatrice gives a hunted man shelter, only to discover that the heart she thought incapable of passion simply needed the right touch to ignite. For his part, Ren finds a woman capable of seeing past the façade, for the man he dares not be. But circumstances are not kind, even after love blossoms.

Almost two hundred years later, strong and independent Maya Hanoush is about to lose the best friend she ever had, the only man to make it past her brittle front. Darnell doesn’t remember not loving the beautiful Maya, but he’s tired of being second best.

Things are about to change.

Technically, this story works in conjunction with Dean's The Average Girl's Guide to Getting Laid, taking two secondary characters and giving them their own romance. However, it's given a very different treatment than I usually read, and doesn't actually require reading the first book to understand (though your appreciation of the second part will definitely vary, I think, if you haven't).

The story starts out in England, early 19^th century, at a young man's sixteenth birthday party where darker tendencies and a morose personality are hinted at. In walks a slightly older, plain jane young woman and a drinking binge turns into groping, turns into more, and her virtue is taken. The characters are sharply drawn, each fascinating in their own right. The story then jumps fifteen years, raising the questions that drive the rest of the first part: Where is the fallout? What happened?

It doesn’t take long to find the story's rhythm again, which is actually the novel’s greatest strength. Life breathes in the minutiae of Beatrice’s life, and when the hunted man she shelters enters the picture, I’m enthralled again.

I can’t, however, say I’m surprised from that point out. It’s very clear to me from the get-go just who this man is, what exactly is haunting him, how it all intertwines with Beatrice. I almost feel that I would have enjoyed the shock of it more if the prologue never existed. As it stands, it pretty much tells the reader the facts she needs to fill in the blanks when the characters refuse to.

But that’s not why I devoured Beatrice and Ren’s love story. I fell for their pain, for their very real need for each other. I loved how we saw glimmers of just how dark Ren could be, and how Beatrice both tempered and drew that out. It was a punch in the gut when part one ended, and I was more than a little furious with Beatrice for doing what seemed rash, even by her new standards. But it was done. And I still had part two to read.

I have to confess that I didn’t remember a lot about Darnell and Maya from The Average Girl’s Guide to Getting Laid except that Darnell had a huge thing for Maya, she was beautiful and unattainable, and that Ash (the hero in the first book) had slept with her. Once I realized they were the couple in part two, I pulled out my copy of Guide and skimmed over their parts, refreshing my memory. And you know what? I’m still not convinced Darnell is a big enough character for this particular story. Of the four principles, I think he’s the weakest drawn, and while he’s likable, he doesn’t elicit the same intense feelings the other three do. He’s the nice guy. That’s not a bad thing, but in this case, being the nice guy just isn’t enough.

The other disadvantage the second part has to the first is its length. The relationship between Darnell and Maya isn’t as richly explored as Beatrice and Ren’s. In fact, the entire ending felt very rushed to me. After everything I had invested, after needing so desperately to have a happy ending for the lovers I thought deserved it, it got truncated to a few pages that skimped on what seemed like very pivotal details. I don't remember any indication of Valentine's Day being significant in the first part of the story, so when Darnell and Maya are having flashes of it being very important that something happen by then, I got confused. It never really got explained for me.

Does it mar my satisfaction with the story? A little bit, yeah. Does it keep me from recommending the story? Absolutely not. Dean’s skillful writing and her provocative characterizations make her one of the most consistent e-authors I’ve found.

And Ren will haunt me for a long time to come.

Readability	9/10 – Completely sucks me in, regardless of time period.
Heroes	8/10 – Darnell never interested me as much, but Ren’s dark side and masochistic behavior hooked into my gut and never let go.
Heroines	8/10 – Both strong women, though Maya’s exploration gets a little short-changed by the shorter second part of the story
Entertainment value	8/10 – The first story broke my heart, but I never completely bought the seams stitching it to the second half, though it was enjoyable enough.
World building	9/10 – Dean works like a pro, committing 100% to whatever world she is attempting to create.
TOTAL:	42/50