Review: Eternal

Eternal by Cecy Robson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Landon Summers is an uber-rich guy, feeling sorry for himself because his wife cheated on him with her manager. She was a pole-dancer and he thought he could save her from her terrible family life instead the victim became the abuser. Reluctantly he agrees to go to a friend's New Years Eve party for one drink to please his irritating sister Trinity.

Luci is the office manager for a law firm in Charlotte. Frankly in the opening chapters she comes across as a complete doormat: trying to look after her mother who is a junkie living on the streets; working all hours of the day and night; no social life; dressing like a nun; so-called friends who treat her like dirt and abandon her at the slightest provocation. However, later in the book these seem to have changed slightly as all the lawyers in the law firm apparently want to date her. Luci's 'friend' Blythe also drags her along to the same New Years Eve party to meet football players. Among all the cheerleaders and football players Luci and Landon meet and make a connection. Which leads to two nights of non-stop sex, because that's the sort of thing that a woman who's been compared to a nun does, right?

After their two nighter Luci and Landon part, only to find a few weeks later that Landon has taken a position at Luci's law firm as a pro-bono lawyer. How to cope when your two-nighter becomes a colleague? But then as they move past that hurdle there is the difference in their situations: Landon is the son of a fabulously wealthy couple, he drives a Maserati and has a house on the beach. Luci's mother is a homeless junkie. Not exactly the same social circles.

In the opening chapters a lot of the writing was very florid and pretentious, typical NA/YA complete with the obligatory smirking. I give you an example:

The best I can do is not faint from the ungodly amount of allure spilling from his essence.

I was close to DNFing the book but I decided to persevere a bit longer and behold, it calmed down.

Overall, I quite enjoyed this novel but I think the characters suffered from being inconsistent. Luci went from being a drab, workaholic doormat to a sexy siren adored by her colleagues. Landon went from being a self-pitying, self-absorbed, crass man to being a kind, sharing, philanthropical lawyer whose only aim was to help the helpless. Its almost as if the two-nighter and the rest of the novel were from different stories.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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