DNF Review: London With Love by Chris Haigh

Single Sundays: While this blog may be focused on reviewing book series as a whole, we can’t forget about the good ole’ standalone novel! On Sundays, I will review a novel that is considered to be a standalone novel. Here is this week’s offering:

Synopsis for London With Love (from Goodreads):

Emily Gibson is age 26, attractive, and working in London. Her love life up to now has been a disaster, making her reckless and unpredictable. In spite of being good at her job, she gets fired.
Scott Gillons is four years older, a hot and handsome plastic surgeon who has developed a secret microchip tracker to implant into humans. Even though women adore him, he finds serious relationships don’t work – until he meets Emily.
She’s been two-timed and abused by a previous boyfriend, and yet Emily still likes a bad-boy element in her men. She rejects Scott, while confiding a secret to her friends. Tensions mount as her life takes an unexpected turn, and she makes a discovery which threatens her safety.
Truths emerge as Scott has to face up to his own issues. There are confessions he needs to make to Emily if their friendship is to become true love, confessions which will leave him vulnerable and, if made public, would damage his career as a surgeon.
As the facts come out, Emily and Scott become entangled in each other in a search for commitment and a future together.

Author: Chris Haigh
Genre: Adult, Contemporary, Suspense, Romance
Heat Rating: unsure; BDSM: light; Kink: mild
Point of View: Third Person, Alternating
Publication Date: July 8th, 2016
Source & Format: Author–eARC

disclaimer

Disclaimer: I stopped reading London With Love at 30%. Find out why below…

Why I Picked it Up / My Expectations:

As someone who enjoys suspense movies and loves romance novels, I rarely read romantic suspense. I’m not sure why, I guess I just gravitate more towards romantic dramas instead.

So when I was asked if I was interested in reading London With Love, I wanted to give it a chance. It sounded promising with two characters holding two life-impacting secrets and I couldn’t wait to uncover those.

What I Liked:

–The Setting–

I really don’t read enough novels set in London, England. Especially now that I’ve visited there and can picture the scene so much easier. I also love British slang and so I enjoyed that aspect of the writing as well.

–The Premise–

When I stopped reading, I could see that there was potential for this story. While it hadn’t gotten to the suspenseful part yet, I was starting to see where the story was going.

I also like stories with darker vibes and this one was giving them to me. These two have interesting pasts that aren’t so happy and it was obvious what those effects had on their psyche.

What I Didn’t Like:

–The Plot Moved Very Slow–

I was at 30% and I could count on one hand the number of times Scott and Emily had interacted with each other. In other words, this is the very definition of a slow burn romance and it just wasn’t grabbing my attention.

I did like the darker premise a lot but it just took a little too long for that element to come into play. I feel like everything would have come to light in the next chapter or two but my interest just wasn’t there.

–The 3rd Person Narration–

This is the biggest reason why I DNF’d this book when I did: I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening.

I’m not sure if it was the third person narration or the writing itself, but I was struggling to visualize what what I was reading and that dampened my reading experience. I think part of it is just my inexperience reading third person POV suspense novels as well (I would say 90% of the books I read are first person).