I mean terrible. 

Besides the the hero forgiving the heroine immediately it turned into a schmaltzy love must conquer hate! mess. It drove me nuts. And of course it was all coming from the asshole heroine. OMG, let him go, for us, our love must overcome his hate, nevermind he'll keep coming after us OOPS he kidnapped me again! Argh!

Then, of course, a ton of time was spent with the hero and heroine together being all lovey-dovey like I give a good god damn. The man list eight years of his daughter's life I WANT TO SEE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FATHER AND DAUGHTER!!!!! Instead she was barely in the rest of the book.

*SEETHES*

Seriously, it is the worst trope out there. The only thing I can think of that is worse is the falling-in-love-with-her-rapist trope. I would like to take all the secret baby books, put them in a pile, and make a huge bonfire.

The heroines in these stories are flaming trash piles, with few exceptions. Terrible human beings, and yet I'm supposed to believe in an HEA let alone root for one?

The heroine in this book is no different. Terrible excuses for not telling the hero when she could. And had the nerve to sleep with him before being forced to come clean! Coupled with the heap of other lies she was keeping. I know I'm supposed to be horrified that the villain knocked her the fuck out. But seriously I was just glad someone did what I had been aching to reach through my speakers and do. Because that'll be the only comeuppance she gets. 

Of course, much like all the other heroes in these stories he comes up reasons to forgive her. He understands her lame-ass reasons, and even takes blame upon himself. Gaaaaahhhh! *rips out hair* All so they can end up together when they shouldn't. I always wish the heroine would die or just fuck off in some way that the hero can claim his child and they can live happily ever after.

I hate this trope so much. HATE. The story for me becomes all about what the hero has missed in his child's life. He never gets any justice for that. It's never an HEA for me.

New rule: I flounce the hell out of secret baby books instead of trying to power through. The rage isn't worth it. I may stick around long enough to ascertain what the heroine did to try and find/notify the hero. But if it's not enough, or later she doesn't tell him when she has the opportunity I'm out.

To add insult to injury in this book the sex was so graphic. I liked this series because they were decent romantic suspense, light on sex and not graphic. Actual romance sex scenes. Then somewhere between the second and third book "cock" became Naughton's favorite word —judging by how much she uses it in her PNR series — and so now it is said constantly in this book. It's obnoxious as fuck. Romance doesn't need such graphic euphmisims. 

Because in the first three chapters we're tortured with Psycho-POV more than three times longer than the hero and heroine's POVs combined. On top of that, before the story has really started, before we find out more about the heroine even (other than what we know about them from the first two books) we have to suffer through an exceedingly long, excruciatingly explicit rape and murder scene. Why in the name of all that's fucking holy was that necessary?

It wasn't. All of it just made me want to flounce this book. I might have if I weren't indisposed at the time. But I made it through the first two books so I want to know if I'm right about who the killer is. Even my hopes the heroine wouldn't be as annoying and bitchy as she was in the last book have been dashed so far. I hope it gets better.  I hate it when books make me all ragey. Especially right off the bat. 

That's a lot of angry tags for such a short book. (Just Necessary Women as a stand alone audiobook.) 

Damn train wrecky accident. I accidentally hit the "borrow" button when I was looking at this book instead of adding it to my list so I could look into it later. So, because it took up one of my borrow slots for the month I listened to it. It's 20 minutes, what's the worst that could happen? 

Welp.

Graphic enough incest, cannibalism, and an unsurprisingly fucked in the head little girl. 

Enough said.

Seriously, fuck everything. I need to take another shower. 

IS THIS IN FLIPPING FIRST PERSON?!?!

Why does anyone think a mystery or thriller should be in first person?! Or romance! Soon there will be nowhere to turn for non-tedious/ridiculous storytelling. Looking at some quoted lines from this book . . . really, people think like that? No, they don't. It doesn't make sense!

Why are so many of the books that sound really interesting in frigging first person now?! It's like the authors-pandering-to-adult-YA-readers is infecting everything.

I really truly want want to do harm to the people encouraging authors to abandon third for God awful first. The worst are the ones like the book I finished today. Switching from first to third and back. If you can't tell your damn first person story in one POV without switching that should be a flashing neon sign that your story needs to be in third. Which is probably why I'm so extra mad that this book that sounds so good is in first. I wasn't expecting the last one to be in first at all—totally unpleasant surprise—and then even more heinous that it was mixed third/first. That on top of constantly getting excited over a blurb or newspaper review only to find out the story is in first has lead to severe frustration. Sigh.

In a completely OT aside: Some of the "how I'm feeling about this" emojis or whatever are hilarious. They make no sense!