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All He Ever Desired (2012)

by Shannon Stacey(Favorite Author)

4.08 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1426894457 (ISBN13: 9781426894459)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Carina Press

series

Kowalski Family

review 1: Ryan Kowalski is back in his hometown working on his family's Northern Star Lodge, when he runs into Lauren Carpenter. Fifteen years ago, Ryan asked Lauren to leave her husband and run away with him, but she turned him down. Feeling embarrassed, Ryan just want to avoid her. But that doesn't happen when he catches Lauren's sixteen-year-old son, Nick, vandalizing the lodge. When Nick has to work at the lodge to pay for the damages, Lauren and Ryan are once again thrown together. Contemporary Romance is not a favorite genre for me, but I really enjoy Shannon Stacey's Kowalski family series. Not only do we get a good story with lots of romance, but it also has dialogue that feels real. The supporting characters in this book are wonderful, as is the whole Kowalski clan. T... morehere are several hilarious moments in this book, especially the conversation between Ryan and Lauren's father. My only problem is I felt the book wrapped up a little too quickly. My rating: 4.5 Stars.
review 2: This book wasn't terrible. I liked Ryan, Lauren...err not so much. The story is that Ryan offered to take Lauren away many years ago. She declined the offer and stayed with her husband, who she later divorced because of his infidelity. When Ryan returned to help out at the family business, their paths cross and long buried what-ifs are brought up to the surface. When they are forcibly brought together by her son's vandalism of Kowalski properties, they end up acting on it. Her son started shooting on the windows to blow off steam. When Ryan caught him and figured he was Lauren's kid, he agreed to let Nick work off the damages. During the wedding, Lauren decided to act on her attraction and they get in bed together. The next morning, they are caught by her son in bed. Things are awkward for a while but they worked it out. They called it official. However, things are not peachy. Ryan has a thriving business in another city and his stay in town is temporary. Lauren has a kid to worry about and she is not willing to have another and start her life again. They work it out eventually though after Lauren's big freakout. As usual, the heroine's antics lost me again. When Ryan asked her to move to another city, Lauren over-reacts at the fact that Ryan talked to Dean beforehand. She also fretted over illogical things. The fact that she equated Ryan's business to her dead-end secretarial job did not earn her intelligence points either. She was unsympathetic at this point. She was already unremarkable to start with so her story did not charm me. When she started being illogical, she just lost me, and at that point, I wished Ryan would find another woman and have babies with her instead. I guess my main gripe with this book is the unremarkable heroine. If Ryan purportedly loved her, I did not see why. If he had the balls to ask her to leave with him and compromise his friendship with Dean, then there must be something about Lauren. As far as I knew, it was only her beauty. She was pretty bland. She just took care of her kid and that is about it. Her characterization is pretty shallow and it made me really apathetic towards her story. I wish there was something deeper about her but it did not come across. I could have been convinced that she was worthy of something but I didn't get that impression. The author just wrote Ryan loved her and I was supposed to buy it. It was pretty shabby as far as writings go. I mean, I liked it until the ending. It just had a weird vibe that transformed Lauren into an okay character to someone unlikable. I don't like imbalanced relationship and I consider Lauren and Ryan's relationship one. Ryan put his heart out there everytime and Lauren kept shooting him down. I feel like Lauren's lack of contribution to the relationship is excused away by Ryan's love for her. This is problematic for me because I am not convinced she is worthy of it. It seems to be that he loves her because the author wrote it as such. When an imbalanced relationship comes up, it comes across as a fantasy fulfillment writing rather than a story of its own. Up until the ending, I bought it as a story. After all the sacrifices Ryan was willing to go to, I just thought it as fantasy fulfillment. I wasn't sold on Lauren's agreement either, she seemed to find every excuse to shoot him down while seeming reasonable. I just didn't buy it. Also, Ryan's declaration to kill his business if it came down to it, roll my eyes. If he could go to those lengths to make it work, I would at least like the heroine to return that effort. less

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