Monday, May 16, 2016

Book Review: Chasing Eva by Camellia Hart (In Light of Shadows #1)


Title: CHASING EVA
Author: CAMELLIA HART
Genre: ROMANCE / CONTEMPORARY / SUSPENSE

Synopsis

Author Camellia Hart’s debut contemporary romance novel about a man and a woman whose lives are about to get sizzling hot…
After living through her share of disloyal relationships, Evangeline Avery will be damned if she lets another man cheat her. A beautiful and confident woman, Eva is the owner of an interior design firm at the brink of collapse. She swears to bring her company back to its past glory, even if it involves sweet talking the one man who caused this turmoil in the first place – Clive Stanton.
Notorious playboy Clive Stanton is a powerful businessman and a formidable enemy of many. He doesn’t do love, or at least not until he meets her again, fifteen years after he saw her last. Eva, his crush from teenage years, the one that got away, is back in his world and he is determined to do anything to make her his.
Will passion and lust bring them together or conflict and the unforgettable scars from their pasts forever tear them apart?

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Carra's Review
There are a lot of books out there with rich alpha male leading men that appear to be playboys who then find the one woman that makes them want to commit.  Chasing Eva does fall under this trope, with the added dimension of some possible corporate espionage/fraud going on in our leading lady's company.
Eva is a woman thrust into the running of her late father's company, one she has to learn from the ground up since she had pursued her own very different career before his passing. She's strong and determined to keep the company successful even in the face of many difficulties.  Clive is our leading man, and he certainly fits the playboy bill, at least on the surface.  But there's more to him than you'd expect, as Eva finds out.
Eva and Clive together, it's hot and sexy though Eva does appear to have her doubts thanks to his history with other women and some interactions with one of Clive's exes.  Their intimate scenes are pretty steamy, and they can be pretty intense when they're together.
I did have trouble concentrating on the story.  It did feel a bit unfocused, and the portions relating to the corporate difficulties and investigation seemed to keep getting pushed aside in favor of Eva and Clive's relationship.  This made me feel like that part of the storyline wasn't really important and more like it was being added in to create additional drama apart from the issues brought up from Clive's past relationships.  To me, it kind of felt like there were two separate stories being told at the same time (their relationship and the corporate investigation), and the right balance between them was never struck.
There are plenty of unanswered questions when the book ends, so if you're not a fan of waiting for closure just be aware that this is book one of the series, and you won't find resolution in this installment.  Overall, this was a 3-star read for me, and this story is meant for those 18+ for adult language and sexual content.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Camellia Hart, a techie turned author of romance, lives in San Francisco with her husband, the love of her life. Other than writing her next romance novel, her hobbies include traveling, lazing on a beach with a good read, watching movies with happy endings while gorging on endless buckets of popcorn, red wine, and champagne truffles.




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