REVIEW: Marriage Reinvented by Kat Cantrell

JayneB- ReviewsContemporary / Marriage-in-Trouble / second chance at love / Texas4 Comments

To love, honor and betray…
After surviving the painful disintegration of her marriage, Alexia is finally ready to follow her dream. When she applies for a patent on the product she’s invented, she discovers someone has beaten her to it—her ex Jesse, the man she once loved beyond measure. The double-crosser is holding her patent hostage until she agrees to give their relationship another shot.

Till passion do us part…
Jesse wants to get back what’s his—Alexia. The deal is simple. If she lives with him for three months, he’ll sign over the patent. But as the undeniable heat between them explodes, old hurts and new secrets surface, compromising everything they thought they knew about themselves and their marriage.

For as long as we both shall clash…
Suddenly, the deal becomes a desperate battle to hang on to the only woman Jesse’s ever loved—and she’s not interested in another broken heart.

Dear Ms Cantrell,

While scrolling through the books which have been submitted to DA for review consideration, I came across yours. What got me to try it was the opening scene from the excerpt which promised humor, two strong characters and a contemporary already married marriage of convenience that I could pretty much swallow. I got mainly that but also a reminder that love hurts, marriage is hard and communication is a must.

First off, kudos to you for not actually describing what Alexia’s invention is. The name is enough and I have to admit that when I first read “Thigh Thing,” all I could think of was Suzanne Somers and that TV spot. I wish I could get that image out of my brain but it’s there for a while. I have a question though. Why is Jesse, who lives in T-shirts shown on the cover in a suit?

Both Alexia and Jesse are strong people who live to be in control. And while Jesse might come off initially as being the one in total control and browbeating Alexia into his proposition, it’s almost immediately obvious that he’s madly in love with her and desperate to get her back. Reasons are provided as to why he feels this is his only shot to achieve that but by that point I could see and accept that the power balance here is actually fairly well divided between the two of them.

It’s also evident from the start that just having gotten Alexia back into his life hasn’t solved all the problems of the marriage. No magic wand got waved, no stunning breakthrough occurred that cleared up all the issues and these two are going to have to work through a lot of grief and pain before they’re both on the same page. It was a good sign for me that while their sex was incendiary, what first got them together and what still acted as a powerful attractant was their mutual interest in business. Yes the smexy is abundant but business talk turned them on to begin with.

You certainly didn’t stint on giving them some heartache and issues to work through. An unexpected pregnancy followed by miscarriage complicated by misunderstanding and grief send these two tumbling over the cliff. Jesse’s last ditch effort to give them some breathing room turns and bites him in the ass. Meanwhile Alexia turns her pain against the company he holds dear and these two have the power to hurt and wound where it counts.

I like that both characters do seem to have learned from past mistakes and are on the road to a HEA. That is until something happens which causes Jesse to completely lose his mind. My goodness he was certainly willing to believe the worst of Alexia with no trial or chance for her to defend herself. It was scary to even read how white hot his anger could go in an instant. By the end of the book, they had worked things out and were in a place where they could come back from this pain but TBH, old Jesse might benefit from some meditation and relaxation classes. B-

~Jayne

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Jayne

Another long time reader who read romance novels in her teens, then took a long break before started back again about 25 years ago. She enjoys historical romance/fiction best, likes contemporaries, action- adventure and mysteries, will read suspense if there's no TSTL characters and is currently reading more fantasy and SciFi.

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