Emma Hart is one of those authors that has been kind of hit or miss for me. I usually really love her books or they just don't work for me. I am always drawn to her stories though and her covers are always gorgeous. While I just read and loved Being Brooke, Casanova was not the book for me. The blurb was so promising and sounded like one I was going to love, but I had quite a few issues with the characters and story itself. I seem to be in the minority here though, as all the reviews I have seen so far loved it.
Brett and Lani had been best friends and she loved him, until the day that everything changed. He broke her while never knowing what he had done, and she ran away. But now she is back in town after a death in the family and once her pregnant sister asks her to stay awhile she can't refuse. Especially when Brett's dad asks her to help clean up his image and make him look better after the reputation that he has earned. But can Lani keep herself from falling for him once again, especially when he is more determined that ever to make her fall for him?
I will say that the main reason for my problems with this story were the characters themselves. I have no problem with a manwhore, especially one that changes his ways. While Brett wasn't still hooking up with tons of girls, his attitude about the whole thing was my problem. He was a jerk a lot of the time, and I found myself constantly asking myself "Did he really just say that??" or "Did he really just do that??"...and not in a good way! He had me absolutely flabbergasted at times, and I just couldn't ever get over it because just when he would start to win me over he would say or do something that ruined him all over again! He was unbelievable and not in a good way. I never felt like he was truly sorry for everything that had happened either. Even after he found out what made Lani run, he openly admitted that he did what she said (He gets a few points for honesty) but then he basically excuses it by saying that he had his reasons for it and he never meant it. Really? Lani had her moments where I thought I was going to really like her. She told Brett's dad that she would be honest and portray Brett exactly as he was while doing her best to show the positives and not the negatives, and she did do that. She let others see the good side of him and there were parts of him that were really good! They made me want to love him. But she also forgave him far too easily and didn't really make him work for anything. She was a bit too much of a doormat for me, with him easily getting back in without really even having to try. I should have paid attention to the blurb, because it said it all..."He didn't chase me. He never needed to, because he knew I'd come back. He was right." While these two had chemistry and the attraction was obvious, I struggled to get behind their relationship because of how Lani just rolled over and how Brett's attitude about everything was.
There were so many times that I really thought about putting this book down, mostly when Brett said or did something that just destroyed all the good he had built up. I ended up finishing though, because I really wanted to see if he could fully redeem himself. Unfortunately for me, I never felt like he did. He didn't seem that sorry for what had happened, and Lani was apparently fine with that even if I wasn't. I also felt like the big secret the family was keeping that Lani had been hired to clean up his image after, referred to as "The Thing", was so anticlimactic. It was made out to be this giant thing and once I found out what it was (very late in the story I will add) it just wasn't that big of a deal to me. This one just wasn't for me, and as much as I wanted to love it there were just too many strikes against it in my book. I do think that a lot of readers will love this one, and if the early reviews are anything to go by that is definitely the case. Sadly this one wasn't for me, and if you have a problem with doormat heroines or manwhore heroes this might not be for you either. But I do recommend giving it a shot if it sounds like one you might like, since I definitely seem to be in the minority. I won't stop reading Emma Hart as I have enjoyed a lot of her books, Casanova was just a miss for me.
**ARC Provided by Inkslinger PR**
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