That Dangerous Age by Veronica Wilde

TITLE: That Dangerous Age
AUTHOR: Veronica Wilde
PUBLISHER: Liquid Silver Books
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 42k)
GENRE: Contemporary erotic romance
COST: $5.75

When her married sister needs her emotional support, Whitney VanHaren spends six weeks with her and her family at Cape Cod, determined to make the last few months before her thirtieth birthday memorable. She doesn’t expect the startling attraction she has for one of the counselors at her niece and nephew’s summer camp, however. But in spite of the fact that he’s younger than she is, she agrees to meet with him, then to go out. The only problem is…he’s even younger than she thinks. Convinced Whitney will never agree to go out with him, Liam Dashwood tells her he’s twenty-five when in actuality, he’s only nineteen. In social circles where her sister’s status is everything, Whitney has no choice but to stop seeing him. There’s no future there, she tells herself. Except what if there is…?

I waffled on buying this particular book. While I like older woman/younger man stories, nineteen seemed just a little bit too young for me to really enjoy. In the end, however, I decided to give it a shot. The excerpt on the website was smooth and engaging (I love that Liquid Silver does whole first chapters; it’s easily the best site out there for giving a reader a real sample of the story), so I thought, What the hell.

I’ve heard good things about this particular author before, though I’ve never actually been enticed enough to try her. That’s likely to change in the future. She has a very easy voice to get sucked into. Her prose is neither complicated nor overtly simple, and I found myself halfway through the story with barely batting an eyelash. She doesn’t cheat on detail; there’s enough there to paint a picture for the reader without getting lost in too much. However, she’s not big on a lot of metaphors or difficult constructions, so in many ways, I became very detached that I was reading at all. Some authors have such distinctive voices that it’s impossible not to see the artistry, but here, it was so easy and yet evocative that I felt more like I was experiencing the story rather than reading it.

Part of that is helped in that the perspective stays completely in Whitney’s head. It’s much easier to immerse yourself in the story when that happens. Everything experienced here is through her POV, which ultimately, might lend more reason to some of my problems with it.

My biggest one is – unsurprisingly – Liam. In order for Whitney to get over the age differential, the author has painted Liam in a very perfect palette. He’s the perfect lover, the perfect friend. He backs off as soon as Whitney says to, doesn’t press too hard, does exactly what she asks of him, even when he wants to go public with their affair. Whitney herself admits they have very little – if anything – in common, other than this amazing physical attraction for each other. Because of all this, and because we got a good chunk of the story with Whitney driving all this home, I never really believed that this had any hope for lasting for long.

That’s not to say it isn’t sweet and charming while it lasts, however. Because of the author’s voice, I was sucked into the emotion and passion of this pair. Whitney constantly refers to Liam as sweet, but ultimately, that’s the word that best describes both of them. Sometimes, that’s a very good thing.

Readability	9/10 – Smooth, very engaging prose. An easy read without being simple.
Hero	6/10 – Lovely, but the too-good-to-be-true factor never goes away.
Heroine	7/10 – Intelligent but bordering on wishy-washy
Entertainment value	7/10 – Sweet and charming, though that’s more a reflection on the author’s voice than any true belief that the romance will last
World building	7/10 – A nice set-up of a posh world
TOTAL:	36/50