Love Her or Lose Her: A Novel: 2 (Hot and Hammered, 2)

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The book I like best is HEAT STROKE—which is an m/m romance; perhaps it works because, without a male-female dynamic distracting me, I could focus more on character development. As soon as she left him, Dominic opened his eyes and realized one more time he made wrong decisions about his priorities in his life and after that he was determined to take his wife back even it meant too much groveling or something worst like: ACCEPTING TO SEE A HIPPY MARRIAGE COUNSELOR AND APPLYING HIS UNCONVENTIONAL METHODS TO TEST THEIR MARRIAGE! It's a second chance for the Vegas' marriage and hard truths are going to have to be told and feelings expressed if they're going to have a chance. When her girlfriends encourage Rosie to demand more out of life and pursue her dream of opening a restaurant, she decides to demand more out of love, too. I felt that there were way too many cringy sex scenes which took away from the relationship development and personal development I woud have liked to see here.

Frustrated by Dominic’s failure to communicate anything to her other than lust (every Tuesday night), Rosie moves out, but Dominic will do anything to win her back, even attend marriage counseling with a hippie therapist. Rosie and Dominic did work it out on the dance floor, though, and I was there for every bit of that.I swear, I think I cried no less than 5 times while reading their love story because I just could feel how much they loved each other and the angst of their marital troubles was killing me and I just fell so much in love with them. Dominic learns that he has to “share” Rosie, which is great, but his possessiveness of her in the first place is a huge scary red flag that I never felt was adequately addressed. For a romance book to work, you have to see the romantic leads and compatible and believe that they could work off the page which I found to be lacking in this book.

But then I tried and earlier book of hers (the name escapes me right now) and just couldn’t get into it at all. As they complete one ridiculous-yet surprisingly helpful-assignment after another, their remodeled relationship gets stronger than ever. There was a scene of Rosie and Dominic dancing in the kitchen that I thought hit what I wanted, two people who have loved each other forever but are seeing each other for the first time in many years; top-shelf emotion. I thought the obvious series baiting for Bethany and Wes, through their bantering and bickering, seemed a little forced but Bailey probably has some hot and heavy scenes planned for those two. I’ve avoided her books in the past because male possessiveness/control seems to be a Bailey signature based on book info and it’s really not my thing.

Endless explanations - from Dominic, from the therapist, from Rosie - felt like just putting lots of theoretical examples in the characters' mouths; thus the emotions felt artificial and flat.

From no sex to phone sex to a striptease to an orgy in the woods, Bailey is an expert in those lusty, sexually powered scenes. I was a bit unsure about this book to begin with, normally my favourite books are based on those who meet and fall in love, however, it was hard not to fall in love with this book. Love has to be practiced, the way religion or yoga or medicine is practiced— regularly and with intention. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.

Re-read 8/27/20: I re-read this in preparation for book 3 and I don't really have much to add to my previous review. I think if you're going to introduce a topic like a deployment in a war torn country, then you have to delve into it properly, and it just wasn't. I went into this book really excited because I'm actually a big fan of the marriage on the rocks trope and I think reading about rekindled love can be very sweet and heartfelt.