REVIEW: Sweet Talk - Susan Mallery

Is there anything sweeter than a first love?

Don't ask Claire Keyes. The twenty—eight—year—old piano prodigy has never had a regular boyfriend, much less a real romance. Her music career has left little room for friends or family—which is just part of the reason she hasn't seen the family bakery or her two sisters in years.

But now Nicole is sick, and Jesse is AWOL. Despite the fact that Claire can't boil water, she's determined to play caretaker. Connecting with her sisters tops her to—do list…along with falling in love, or at least in lust, for the first time.

Ruggedly sexy Wyatt just might fit the bill. Although he keeps saying that he and Claire come from entirely different worlds, he lights up hotter than a bakery oven whenever Claire is near. If this keeps up, she just might sweet—talk him into her bed…and her life.

I will begin by saying I had mixed feeling about this book. In some ways I liked it, in others I, well, to be honest, hated it. I must start with the thing that drove me batshit crazy throughout the whole book--Nicole's (the heroine's sister) attitude. She is by far the bitchiest, stubborn, irrational, single-minded character I've ever seen Ms. Mallery write... and I don't mean that in a good way. All three sisters have serious personality flaws and ones that either the reader will be willing to accept or ones that the reader will dislike. I fall into the latter category. I can't put my finger on one thing that had me not liking this book very much... whether it was the characters, their attitudes, the immaturity displayed by the 20-something-year-old females in this book, the fact that I didn't really "see" the romance developing..there was a zing for him, three chapters later she felt the zing, then whamo! Chemistry. They hadn't hardly spent any time together. The reasons for why Claire has sex and the reasons why Wyatt doesn't want more than that were cliched. Normally I can handle a cliche, but this time, it just didn't work for me.

Sorry for bouncing all over the place with this review, but it really was a confusing and exhausting book. I think, looking back, it really was the immaturity and personalities of the sisters that turned me off of this book. It felt like it should have been a YA book-- almost-- or a relationship novel for the women and should have just left the romance out of it, because to me the romance honestly felt like an afterthought.

So, while Susan Mallery is one of my favorite authors, I must admit to not liking this book much. My overall grade (and I cringe as I admit the truth): D.