TERRIBLE.The story follows a prickly make up artist and an injured cowboy. He is immediately attracted to her and tries to spark a relationship. They embark on a sexual one but they are soon at odds. He discovers that she is responsible for bringing a film crew at his soon-to-be ranch. This resurrects bad memories that bring to mind his youthful mistakes, his acting like a prostitute, bad-mouthing family and friends, and causing grief to his father who died months later. To make matters worse, the film-maker is his former lover. The main characters end up fighting. However, their lives continue, albeit it is spent in animosity. She is a prickly make up artist, blacklisted by the industry after speaking out against a famed director, who was abusive to his girlfriend. She left her boyfriend taking away his money. She is currently staying with her great aunt to pick up pieces of her life before she embarks on her next step. She ends up finding a niche for herself though. I thought this book was so terrible. I felt annoyed throughout my read. It has my all-time hated trope of the tough but softie girl. If a tough character has to be written, I would like it if the characteristic was shown and not told. I kept being hammered with this tough girl persona when she was just a big softie throughout. I think what makes it worse is she believes she is tough and I just couldn't stomach it. I suppose I am suppose to glean her tough character from her history but I found it to be lazy since she didn't really demonstrate any in the present.I thought the hero was pretty dumb. He was pretty gung-ho on getting to know her. He came in with his optimism blazing bright, which soon dimmed when one thing didn't go his way. The cast in this book is just terrible. Gave it a three stars because Victoria Dahl is a wonderful writer. However, I found myself thinking a few times in the book, "this is slow", "ugh", "when is this going to end?", "How long is this girl going to be so pissed off at the world?". I understand she's had a hard life and she's trying to make it on her own.. but I'm thinking that this probably wasn't the right book for me to read at this time. I found myself feeling bad for the hero of the story, Cole Rawlins - a man dealing with physical difficulties and pain after having a horse fall on him, breaking bones in his legs and pelvis. He is determined to save the $$ he needs to buy a ranch that he's been working on for years. He's a likeable character and a sympathetic character. He isn't perfect, he's got a past that he's ashamed of and he deals with it. Grace Barrett, has also had a few hard knocks in her life, she's a make-up artist from Hollywood and ended up with a loser of a boyfriend who she took money from, who then in turn had it all stolen from her. And he is now trying to track her down to recover the money she took. She told off a director of a film, who was physically abusive towards his leading star that he was having a relationship with, and he fired her. She leaves Hollywood and heads off to Jackson Hole, Wyoming where an Aunt has a place where she can stay and she can lick her wounds. People there are good to her and are doing much to help her out and turn her life around. And she isn't really doing much to change what's going on inside her, and she just wants to run away from it all. And just about every interaction between her and Cole, which is pretty much sexual, she runs away. I truly enjoy books that have strong female characters, but sometimes the characters are so strong that they would alienate everyone around them. I have cast aside more books because I really don't like the female character. I find myself impatient with the continuous anger, and I'm ready to just move on. Not to mention I can't help but question the Hero's attraction, other than the whole thing just has to be sexual. For me the romance becomes one sided because it's him doing all the work. And because of that I find little romance in the whole thing. Next book will be a happy book!
What do You think about Close Enough To Touch (2012)?
Well that's a disappointment. I have no clue how the author felt when she wrote this book, but I thought it was a very dark book, rather full of despair and negative thinking and little hope.The heroine, Grace, survived very tough things growing up. I did not completely understand how low she could be at the beginning of the book, completely broke, with nothing but for a few clothes and a huge makeup box. She had been working for a few years and just had 6 months unemployment, while living with her previous boyfriend, so it seemed extreme. She was extremely insecure, frequently aggressive to anyone (well that's consistent) and totally lacking any ability to plan and organize her life. Even if she managed to touch me from time to time, then she had to behave awfully and ruin everything. Knowingly furthermore. Well I really did not like her much.Her newly found boy-friend was not better. Still carrying a grudge and feeling insecure and guilty from what he had done for a few weeks 13 years before. And what he had done was not even that bad. He had not hurt even unwillingly anyone, just himself and his overinflated self-esteem. He also spent 9 months burying his head in the sand regarding his future, just bemoaning the past that will no longer be. At least those two found each other right. But I consider them to be a couple of loosers, not very interesting to start with. Even the sliver of hope we can see at the end I did not like, because once more it came from outside and neither of them had worked/matured/learnt anything to bring themselves this hope. By far, the book I liked least by Victoria Dahl and one I cannot recommend.
—Mel
This is a really good romance by Victoria Dahl. Normally her stuff trends more toward erotica, but this is refreshingly light on sex, and really delves into each character. I found the women to be written in a loveable sort of way (except Willa, who is written to be hated). However, all of the men but Easy I found to be assholes, even "sweet" Cole. Cole is too prideful and it made him into a shortsighted asshole. I knew the couple would end up in the end, but I almost didn't want them to."Close Enough to Touch" is well-written and kept me interested in the story. The story itself has a lot of emotion, but it's softened with enough humor to keep it palatable.
—Tim
A really good read. I enjoyed all the characters and can't wait for the books still to come.
—Jdog
Storyline was good bit I did not like either of the main characters.
—sierrastillsierra
