The Look of Love

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Synopsis

Chloe Peterson is having a rough night. After being attacked by her scumbag ex-husband, she dashes off into the rainy evening, only to run her car off the side of the slippery road into a ditch. Luckily a handsome stranger comes to her rescue, although Chloe is skeptical that she can trust him. Chase seems like a nice guy, but so did her ex at first. With no other options at hand, Chloe goes with him. He puts her up in the guest house at his brother's Napa Valley winery, but she only intends for it to be the one night. However, in the light of a new day, she's wowed by the beauty of the setting and drawn by Chase's photography. She ends up staying for a few days to help out with his current photo shoot, and before long, she's burning up the sheets with him every night. But sooner or later, Chloe knows she'll have to face the music and get back to the life she left behind.

Chase Sullivan is a successful and well-known photographer, who's traveled the world on shoots and has his pick of beautiful women. Yet, none of them have ever intrigued him as much as Chloe. From the moment he meets her, there's a combustible attraction between them that he can't ignore. He's happy that Chloe decides to stay for a little while and quickly comes to realize that someone must have hurt her the night he found her on the side of the road. He wants to help, but she insists on being independent and taking care of matters herself. In only their few days together, Chase starts falling in love with Chloe, but when she decides it's time to leave, can he really let her go?

Review

The Look of Love is the first book in Bella Andre's Sullivans series as well as the first in the San Francisco Sullivans sub-series. We begin with Chase Sullivan, third oldest of the San Francisco Sullivans, who is a jet-setting photographer and consummate playboy. One rainy night while on the way to his older brother, Marcus's winery for a photo shoot, he comes upon a woman whose car has skidded off the road into a ditch. He stops to pick her up, but she's pretty wary of him. When he sees the bruise on her cheek, which he quickly comes to suspect came from a person rather than the accident, her fear makes sense. Once he convinces her to come with him, he takes her to the guest house at the winery to put her up for the night. Given that she had to make a quick getaway from her abusive ex, Chloe isn't sure whether she can trust Chase at first, but her misgivings quickly melt away in the light of her intense attraction to him. Although she knows that she should call the cops and take care of the situation she's in rather than getting into a new relationship with another man, she can't help stopping to catch her breath in this beautiful setting for a few days. By day, she finds ways to help on Chase's photo shoot, and by night, she gets to know him better while burning up the sheets. But sooner or later Chloe knows her sojourn must come to an end, and she must make a decision about whether she wants to continue the relationship with Chase or chalk it up to a pleasurable moment out of time.

Chloe's parents were distant while she was growing up, which left her longing for an intense love and a more involved family. She fell hard and fast for the man who became her husband, but he quickly turned violent. It's been a year since she filed for a divorce, and she's been trying to get her life back together. She's been working as a waitress and starting to fix up an apartment when her ex shows up at the door, a visit that ends with him punching her in the face. She fought back and made a run for it, but wound up in the ditch, where Chase found her. After what just happened, Chloe isn't sure if she can trust him, but with few other options, she decides to go with him. He takes her to the guest house at his brother's winery, where she discovers a strong attraction to him, but she only intends to spend the night. However, in the light of a new day, things start to change for her as she helps him on his photo shoot and meets his brother. Chloe realizes that the attraction is going to inevitably end with them having sex, so she doesn't even try to fight it anymore. Instead she gives in, taking all the pleasure she can get from the moment, while telling herself it's just sex and that soon she'll move on and get back to her normal life. But every day she spends with Chase makes her want to trust him more until she realizes that she doesn't want to live without him.

Chloe was okay as the heroine, but I couldn't help feeling that there was a lot about her that didn't make sense and that she was somewhat underdeveloped. To begin with, I was very frustrated that it took so long for her backstory to come out. It's obvious from the start that she's been abused in some way. I could understand her keeping that information from Chase for a while, but if at least some of this had come out earlier in her introspection, it would have helped me connect with her better. Also given all that's happened to her, I felt like she should have been more cautious with Chase. Instead, as soon as they get to the guest house, she's already feeling attracted to him, even though she keeps asking herself why she is and why she isn't more afraid of him. Every time she asked herself why (which happened a lot), I rolled my eyes. Merely asking such a question isn't character development. The author should have been answering those questions as well, because it's in those answers that a reader will find actual depth of character. I was also perturbed by Chloe not calling the police immediately to report her ex's abuse. She ran out of her apartment, leaving him behind, so presumably the door never got locked. Then she just shacks up with Chase for days on end without worrying about her stuff or doing anything. Every abused woman is going to react differently, so I try to make allowances, but what Chloe was doing seemed rather foolhardy to me. Women often have trouble even getting the police to believe them, so allowing about a week to pass by before contacting them would probably make them more disinclined to take her seriously. Also her bruises would have faded out by then. Thankfully Chase thought of this and surreptitiously took photos of her, just in case, but she never even thought about that once, which would have left her with no evidence if he hadn't. For someone who so desperately wanted to be independent and handle the matter herself, she wasn't making the best choices. Overall Chloe wasn't a bad character, but she did frustrate me at times.

Chase was even more underdeveloped than Chloe. He's a well-known photographer who has traveled the world for photo shoots. He's also the consummate playboy with his pick of beautiful woman, including models and others in the industry. He comes from a large family with seven brothers and sisters, and as one of the oldest of the siblings, he helped raise the younger ones when their father died when he was ten. Other than this, I couldn't tell you much else about him, except that he really tweaked me at the beginning of the story. After picking her up on the side of the road, Chase irritated me by going against Chloe's clearly expressed wishes to be taken to a hotel by instead simply taking her to his brother's guest house. He was suspicious from the outset that she'd been abused, and this was the exact wrong thing to do for someone in that situation. He could have tried harder to persuade her to come with him to the winery instead of running roughshod over her. Then once they're at the guest house, he tries to get a closer look at the bruise on her face. When she pulls away, he grabs her arm and drags her into what amounted to an embrace. Again the exact wrong thing to do with an abused woman. Later he simply walked right into the bathroom while she was bathing, only to find her self-pleasuring. He said he was concerned that she might have left when he didn't see her stuff in the bedroom, but since the bathroom door was closed, I couldn't help thinking, Dude haven't you heard of knocking first to be sure? And when he found her in such a delicate state, he should have immediately left, but instead, he stands there watching the show, and even takes his good sweet time handing her towel when she asks for one. Sheesh! I would have been getting out of there and running for the hills not eating it up like Chloe was. All I can say is that at least once the sexy times actually commence between them, Chase finally practices enthusiastic consent, but up until then, he was behaving like anything but an honorable gentleman, which is how I prefer my romance heroes.

From everything I've seen, Bella Andre is a very popular and well-liked romance author, so I'd been looking forward to trying one of her books for some time. The Sullivans series seems to be a fan favorite, so that felt like a promising place to start. However, The Look of Love fell rather flat for me, ending up just being an okay read. Like I mentioned Chloe was all right, but there were aspects of her character that left a lot to be desired. In addition to what I've mentioned already, it was stated within the story that her ex had berated her for her sensual nature, but her feelings about that were hardly even explored. She also magically got over her past abuse and trust issues in a matter of days, which was not particularly credible. For the first quarter or so of the book, Chase was definitely on my bad side. On top of the consent issues I discussed, he just seemed a bit shallow in his pursuit of women. Playboys are a dime a dozen in romance, so I don't have a problem with that in general, but I do like for my playboy heroes to show a little depth and vulnerability, which Chase lacked. I did like him better later on after he started treating Chloe right, but he was still just okay.

Perhaps as a results of me not connecting deeply with the characters, I also didn't really vibe with their romance either. I love my sexy romances, but here, I thought there was a bit too much sex. This isn't billed as an erotic romance, yet the ratio of sex to page count was pretty high. They spend the day on the photo shoot, maybe share a meal or some other activity in the evening, and then go home to make love. Wash, rinse, repeat for nearly the whole book. Chloe's ex could have also been built up as a bigger threat. Instead, he's just this nebulous villain who's out there somewhere, shows up at the very end, and is dispatched with little fanfare. Likewise, the rest of the supporting cast was pretty weak, too. The only one of Chase's family we really get to meet is Marcus, who is the hero of the next book, From This Moment On, but all we really learn about him is that his current relationship seems to be in trouble. Overall, despite all my criticisms, The Look of Love wasn't a bad book per se, which is why I still gave it three stars, but it just didn't fully capture my imagination in the way I wanted it to. That being the case, I may give the author/series one more shot, especially since I have more of her books on my TBR pile, but I probably won't been a hurry to do so.

Note: While this isn't really an erotic romance, it does contain a tasteful scene of light bondage, which could be objectionable to sensitive readers.

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