Title: Three Dates
Series: Paths to Love #2
Author: Grahame Claire
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: November 2, 2018
And I intended to keep it that way.
But to save my best friends’ relationship, I agreed to three with the man I secretly long for.
He doesn’t know why we can’t be. That chancing a relationship
would bring everything crashing down around us.
Whatever he makes me feel is irrelevant. Wherever he thinks this may lead, he’s wrong.
Three dates.
That’s all I have to survive before I can put him back where he belongs…
At arm’s length.
That’s how long I’ve waited for her.
Now I’ve got three shots to convince her what I’ve known all along…
We belong together.
Despite all of my determination, each new revelation seems to pull us apart.
With everything stacked against us, we may not even make it to date three, let alone forever.
**My Review**
Welcome to my stop on the release blitz tour for Grahame Claire’s Three Dates! We met Muriella and Stone in the previous novel, It’s Not Over, where we learned that Muriella had escaped an awful fate many years earlier thanks to her closest friend, Daniel. Stone, a native Texan rancher turned actor, was also introduced as a friend of Daniel and his wife Vivian. After years of attraction towards one another, Stone convinces Muriella to go on three dates with him and he has no idea how difficult the battle will be for her to let anyone get close to her.
I want to start by saying that by the time I finished this book, I loved it. However, it took several tries for me to get into it because it was physically, mentally, and emotionally impossible for me to like Muriella! I hate to say that about a lead character in a novel, but I struggled to find her positive qualities. Muriella has been through horrible things in her life dealing with the death of a parent, sexual abuse, and being a refugee from a foreign country. In both books, her character has been very quiet and reserved, only being affection and/or showing any kind of emotion with Daniel and Vivian. But for some reason, Stone decided to be patient and try to get her to open up.
Stone, on the other hand, was fantastic! He’s funny, smart, talented, sexy, cares about his family, and obviously, as patient as a human can be. I think with the right readers, Stone could be the perfect catalyst for getting readers to see Muriella in a more positive light, but for me personally, I just couldn’t get past her odd behaviors. Stone made some mistakes along the way with Muriella and his family, but overall, I felt nothing but love for him!
It took me a while to get into Three Dates, but once I did, this novel was action-packed, emotional, romantic, and at times, suspenseful. Definitely not your run of the mill romance, this novel has many layers that are slowly peeled back as it progresses. I am always fascinated with co-authored books, but I must say that this is some of the best writing I’ve read my two authors. It’s seamless regarding tone, voice, dialogue, descriptions, and everything else you could imagine. Grahame Claire ensures that the reader feels every moment whether funny, angry, sad, awkward, romantic, and so on. They complete transport you into the novel so that you can see what’s happening, hear the voices, feel the tension, and then celebrate the happy moments.
I highly recommend this novel, despite my issue with Muriella, and hope you will add this one to your TBR. Make sure to read It’s Not Over first so that you will understand everything, but to sum things up, this is a great book with fabulous writing.
*Thanks to Give Me Books for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review!
Soulmates. Unashamed of our multiple book boyfriends. Especially the ones
that rooted in our heads and wouldn’t leave us alone. Don’t worry.
We’ll share.
Pleased to meet you.
Dandelions Inspired 