Scandalous (Scandalous, #1) by H.M. Ward

Scandalous by H.M. Ward
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.5 Stars

I didn’t really know the plot to Scandalous, I’ll admit, I judged the book by the sexy cover. Scandalous is a mild steamy art themed read.

Abby ran away from NY to Texas 10 years ago due to a traumatic event (I thought that would be the mind issue, but it wasn’t). Her current employment in Texas kind of put Abby in a bind, so Abby goes back to NY to live with her best friend and find a job to pay off her student debts. Jack needs a “marm” someone to supervise while Jack uses models to paint. Abby becomes Jack’s marm. Jack and Abby knew each other in High School (10 years ago) and Abby is conflicted with her past and current issues.

I’m all for the poor girl running back home, to only have the successful ex-best friend to sweep her off her feet story line. It’s an overall cute, lightly steamy read. My main issues are from the writing style and obvious plot twist.

Abby is an interesting cookie, I didn’t like her and I think she’s a contraction. Abby has a religious background, but she doesn’t act like one who has that kind of background, I found it very unbelieving. I think Abby should have been something other than the religious person Ward made her out to be. Also, something traumatic happened to her 10 years ago and I figure that would be her issue, but it wasn’t, which I found odd. The main problem Abby faces is the bind her previous employment put her in, but I didn’t find the issue that big of a deal.

I liked Jack, but he wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, he did show signs of being aggressive and dominate towards the second half of the book (which I enjoyed very much), other than that, he’s character seemed to fall a little flat. Also, it’s hard for me to believe that he’s this all talented millionaire artist, but it’s a fantasy, so I go with it.

I didn’t care for the abrupt chapters. It was like reading a few pages and then it ends, maybe it’s hard for me to get into a story when it’s so short. I’m a huge fan of character development and I suppose I didn’t really get that. I didn’t feel like Abby and Jack had a past, of course I got a few glimpses of what happened, but nothing to set the foundation of the feeling of a long-lost relationship.

Since I live in Texas, I didn’t like the stereo typical Texas references. I felt like Ward should have referenced a specific city in Texas instead of just saying “Texas”, I mean, yes we are a conservative state, but no not all of us have accents and act like hicks, I mean Sandra Bullock has a home in Austin, Texas, so you get what I mean right? (A personal rant, but one I needed to make).

There of course has to be tension at the end, but I wasn’t fond of what the tension came out to be. I felt like the hero and heroine of the story made us believe they were this epic couple, but a little blip and it’s like oh what’s your name? Maybe I was the only that got that feeling, it didn’t happen straight like that, it’s just how I felt at the time reading.

I have a 3.5 star rating because overall Scandalous was a decent charming read. I would recommend and I’ll probably pick up book 2 when it’s out. I just hope the kinks are worked out by then.