Book Review: Unbound by Dale Mayer

Changing her future means letting go of her past. Karina heads to a weekend seminar and discovers the speaker is the person she needs to move on from. But she soon realizes bigger issues are facing her…
Brian has moved on, at least he’d believed he had… until he sees Karina in his audience…and realizes he’s been lying to himself.
Passion pulls them together, love binds them together, but a revengeful enemy determines to keep the two apart…and destroy them both

After a one night stand at the end of college, that ended badly when Brian walked out the following morning, Karina has spent the next 10 years hurting.

Since panicking and leaving, Brian has become a successful life coach and has got married, had a child, and got divorced. Karina attends one of his weekend sessions, to put the past behind her. Little does either of them realise, the chemistry is still strong and hasnt diminished like Karina had hoped.

Their relationship takes a step forward, but only for it to be jeopardised by Ian, a man from their combined past, who blames Brian for his current issues, and who extends his harassment to include Karina. The rest of the book covers Karina and Brian working out their relationship, whilst being threatened by Ian. The last third of the book does pick up when the harassment comes to ahead, and both Brian and Karina are left physically and emotionally damaged.

There are several sex scenes, which are “sexy” enough – whilst not the most explicit I’ve read, are a little raunchier than some people would like to read, so best to avoid if you dont like this kind of scene. They dont get into bed with each other immediately, even when Karina is living in Brian’s house and it’s so clear to everyone around them that they are so in lust with each other. Karina is still hurting from him walking out on her 10 years previously, and Brian is still confused about his feelings and a little scared of commitment to Karina specifically (he also feels guilty for having walked out).

This book does not have the feeling of a Mills and Boon romance novel (of which I have read many, and intend to read more) and does not follow the rigid M&B guidelines. It therefore flows differently to a M&B and I’m not sure whether this is a good or a bad thing.

For a book that is so character driven, some of the supporting characters are not fleshed out as much as they could be – for example, Mark, as Brian’s best friend, is there at the important times, but is noticeably off scene for much of the book. There is a brief reference to his brother having an accident but it’s not mentioned again, and Mark always seems to be available (and well presented) whenever Brian needs him. There is no further reference to the brother at all. Brian seems to have a reasonable relationship with Marly, his ex wife, to the point that he rings her up at difficult emotional points and she willingly gives reasonable advice. There is no reference to how they have managed to survive their divorce so well (and why they split up in the first place), and there is little to no discussion about what Karina feels about the spectre of the ex-wife – though she seems to get on fine with the daughter.

So I’m in two minds about this book – it was an enjoyable and easy book to read and a good premise decently executed. However in writing this review, I’ve realised there are as many things “not quite there” as there are decent points, therefore cant give it as high a star count as I would otherwise. (this is actually a 3.5 star review)

However, I am already looking at other books by this author in order to read her other works.

Author website is here and can be found on twitter here