Almost Perfect
3.5 Stars

Ethan Hendrix, scion of the town's founding family, and Liz Sutton, daughter of the local "fallen woman", were hot and heavy as teens until the night he betrayed her. Now over a decade later, Liz returns to town and must face the consequences of her devastating secret. Can Liz and Ethan forgive each other for the past and fine happiness for the future?

Another series that I had put on the back burner for some unknown reason as Mallery writing is very engaging.

Unfortunately, this particular installment contains several unappealing tropes including a secret baby, a jerk hero and the ubiquitous lack of communication that plagues contemporary romances.

Although the secret baby trope is somewhat mitigated by circumstances beyond Liz's control, this does not fully assuage her responsibility for failing to inform Ethan of his son's existence. That said, Ethan's behavior leaves much to be desired both in his teen years and as an adult. He is completely unlikable from the start, and as such is is difficult to believe in the second chances romance.

Nevertheless, the book is very well written and Mallery manages to reel the reader in, in spite of rather than due to the characters themselves. ( )

This was a nice book. Even though it is a 2nd chance at love book which I don't typically like. If they are done well and/or different somehow they can work for me. I enjoyed that she believed she had been told to stay out of town and keep her child away from him by the boy's father and she was doing it rather than being all belligerant about it. She was calm and reasonable throughout the whole book. He had grown up some since he was a typical young jerk but he still needed to grow up some more. Which he did and proved it by sufficient groveling at the end.

Sometimes people complain there is never any reason for a secret baby story, that any woman who would do such a thing is basically evil incarnate. But I remember being 18 and 18 year olds do not always think rationally. Science tells us that teenagers' brains are not finished developing that young. I will always buy an 18 year old making a poor decision.

The town of Fool's Gold was not so sicky sweet in this one as in the other book I read set here. Not so much emphasis on the lack of men in town. ( )

This secret baby romance has been sitting on my TBR mountain for the past ten years. I was looking for a romance and grabbed this one. I'm generally happy that I did.

Liz Sutton left Fool's Gold shortly after high school graduation. Since she had a horrible home life with her alcoholic mother who dabbled in prostitution and since she was picked on by the mean girls and propositioned by the boys who thought she was life her mother, getting away should have been a relief. However, that departure was spurred when Ethan Hendrix, the boy she thought loved her, denied their relationship and didn't deny it when his friends called her a whore. She was heartbroken and fled only to learn three weeks later that she was pregnant. She went back to tell Ethan and found him in bed with another girl.

Liz did try again to tell Ethan about his son when Tyler was five. This time she was thwarted by his wife who never bothered to tell Ethan that she had come to see him. Also, she forged a letter in Ethan's name saying that he wanted nothing to do with her or her son and to stay away.

But Liz needs to go back to Fool's Gold when she gets an email from her fourteen-year-old niece telling her that she and her sister had been abandoned by their stepmother when her father - Liz's brother - went to prison. She didn't know she had nieces at all. She had had no contact with her brother since he'd left home when Liz was 12.

Liz hopes to be able to solve her niece's problems and get out of Fool's Gold without ever running into Ethan. But of course, that isn't going to happen. Ethan isn't happy to see her and is even less happy when he learns that she has been keeping the fact of her son Tyler from him for eleven years.

Ethan is not a particularly appealing hero. He's too concerned with being right and too concerned with his reputation and that of his family. He deeply resents that Liz kept him from his son and doesn't believe her explanations until he sees the letter that he supposedly sent which only changed things a little for his attitude. It doesn't help either of them that the attraction between them is still so strong. Liz is shown over and over again that Ethan can't be trusted and she keeps trying to be fair despite his abuses.

Also, Fool's Gold doesn't warmly embrace her on her return. Ethan's powerful family takes Ethan's side at first. But gradually Liz finds out that Fool's Gold isn't so bad. There are people there who have the potential of being friends despite their mean girl pasts.

I enjoyed this story despite Ethan's slow change of heart and mind. I thought the characters were interesting and complex. I especially liked that Liz has become a best selling mystery author since she left town and liked that she chose to kill Ethan over and over again in her books. ( )

I swear the main reason that this series is called "Fool's Gold" is because many of the women in this series seem to believe that the men they are interested in. despite them being particularly horrible to them,still seem to believe that this is love. I can honestly say I have never turned so fast on a series before in my life. Since I absolutely adore Susan Mallery's other series, "Blackberry Island" I have such a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that the same author wrote these two series. Maybe this series does get better over time. Too bad I have no intention of finding out.

This is book #2 in the "Fool's Gold" series and centers around thriller writer Liz Sutton and Ethan Hendrix. Liz ran away from Fool's Gold when she was 18 after having her heart broken by Ethan. Eleven (or 10 years based on the first few chapters, which then switched to 11) years after she left Fool's Gold, Liz is called back to help her two nieces who are without any adults in their lives and were left to fend for themselves.

Liz left Fool's Gold because Ethan when he was in college started secretly dating her and denied her to his friends. He keeps up with the denying of his interest in her throughout this book, so much so that I wish that Susan Mallery had called him Peter instead of Ethan.

Also Fool's Gold residents are nosy and opinionated. Seriously, several residents come up to Liz throughout this novel and tell her about herself. This also includes Ethan a few times during the course of this book (what a guy).

What makes this book really infuriating is that you still have Liz desiring Peter, I mean Ethan for no good reason that I can think of at all. The character talks all of the time how Ethan can see the real her (yes somehow after not seeing her for 11 years since she was 18 he knows her inside and out) and she finds herself falling back in love with him. The love scenes were by the numbers and I can say that I found absolutely no chemistry existing between these two characters at all.

I seriously wish that the book had ended differently with Liz getting out of Fool's Gold or more groveling or something occurring on Ethan's end. I just wound up feeling dissatisfied when I finished with this book. ( )

The Hero: He's a jerk. He's hot but seriously says the most stupid things. He's a actual realistic man. Not really what I am looking for in a novel. There's many of this kind of man in real life. I realize he was very young when he did a lot of his stupid things, but that's still not much of an excuse. The way he talked about the heroine to his friends when they were teenagers in unforgivable to me and I couldn't get past that.

The Heroine: Smart, determine, and hard-working. She's done an amazing job building a successful life and raising a child all on her own. I personally think she deserves much better than our hero.

The Relationship: Seems to me like their relationship was mostly based on lust. I support it because I loved the whole family dynamic of the hero's mother and sisters with the heroine. But maybe hero/heroine could have just stayed friends? Like I said, I think she deserves better.

The Setting: Contemporary in a small town. Described as a small town but yet they have a lot of typically city things, like a hospital and college. Things my small town does not have. But everyone knows everybody, which means a lot of gossip and no secrets.

Steam Factor: The perfect amount. It's there without being over the top or forced. Doesn't affect the storyline and it makes sense. Not there just for the sake of being there. ( )