Name: One Hot Scot
ISBN: 9781539650010

Donna Alam

Fin Hayes has ninety-nine problems. Quite literally. She's lost her husband, her job, recently avoided jail time, and is back living in the place she's always loathed . . . when problem #100 walks in. Rory Tremaine is ripped, rich, and handsome, and a blast from the past who seems to have no recollection of Fin. But second time around that's okay, because when she's near his firm ass and tattoos, she's using a fake name anyway. At least she won't be leaving her virginity behind this time. Instead, she might just risk losing her heart.

A Second Chance Novel

One Hot Scot

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I love Scotland as a setting, language, culture, country so the dialect and slang for me were charming but I get how they would confuse or distract some readers from being able to make sense of things. I thought that Fin's backstory was interesting with just the right level of complexity to give it depth - Rory's not so much. His felt flat in comparison, maybe because we spent much more of this book in Fin's POV compared to Rory's and got basically 100% of each of their backstories that way (as opposed to conversations with other characters etc). 

There were some formatting issues that created awkward transitions - basically no marker to indicate a scene break so we go from being in the bedroom one minute to being in a cafe the next sentence and things like that. It was jarring and I had to go back to make sure I didn't miss something. There were other similar awkward transitions in the text too, which made it feel disjointed at times. 

Now for the characters. Fin was mostly fine though I was ready to smack her if she made one more reference to having too-small boobs. Fine, maybe they're small - doesn't mean it needs to come up regularly in her thoughts. Ivy was also fine - kinda blended into the scenery so to speak. Nat, I don't know about. Offputting on one hand, interesting and at least full of personality unlike Ivy on the other hand. June, Nat's 80-something year old grandma had a few unfortunate cases of one of my most loathed tropes, dirty old woman. If you read some of my other reviews, you'll see just how much this icks me out. :) I almost set the book aside when she mentioned her husband liked to "drop anchor in poo bay" as a reference to anal sex. 

So now on to Rory. Hmmm. Overall can't say I really liked him. I mean, he was charming and smooth, sometimes in a smary way, but all of that charm was pretty much solely deployed to get into women's pants. He didn't lie or manipulate per se - just literally charmed the pants off them. All fine and well but at his age, he should be able to govern his needs so he doesn't keep hooking up with women who later create problems, especially women who work for his and his twin's company. When your twin bro has to repeatedly lecture you to keep it in your pants and don't let your dick made bad decisions for you, perhaps you should consider changing your ways a bit. Nope, not Rory. It's like his entire personality was boiled down to "womanizer". There is no depth to him.

I can't understand at all why or how he fell in love with Fin (or vice versa for that matter). The two of them spend most of the book having a purely physical fling and know almost nothing about each other, yet this manslut somehow finds the one women he has ever developed feelings for. I really like to have a sense of a personal connection between love interests, some reason why they are drawn to the other person emotionally and this was just not there for these 2. In fact, shortly after Rory realizes he's in love, he takes Fin out to breakfast and commences a "get to know each other" meeting. Tell me again why he's in love with her?

As for the ending, I'm not buying it. Fin (view spoiler)[finds out her dead husband is actually alive and faked his death. A village idiot/high school rival blabs to the press that Fin is in town. They somehow know that she's at the fairly remote mansion that Rory and Kit are converting to a hotel despite only Nat knowing she was going there. In the span of time between her arrival and tracking down Rory and overhearing a conversation with one of his hookups, she runs out of the house and is ambushed by the press.  (hide spoiler)]Totally unrealistic. So then because of a convo she overheard, she decides Rory was just using her and she (view spoiler)[leaves and goes to London. Rory, bless his little heart, tries to track her down for months but apparently never thinks to call her. Really?? (hide spoiler)] The two (view spoiler)[reunite in a completely random way that would never happen in real life and voilà HEA.  (hide spoiler)]

For me, bottom line is that their relationship felt superficial and shallow and therefore I can't really buy into this great love and HEA. Also she can do better than Rory.

One Hot Scot A Second Chance Novel

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