From New York Times bestselling author, Penelope Ward, comes a sexy, STANDALONE second-chance romance.
They called him Mack Daddy. No, seriously, his name was Mack. Short for Mackenzie. Thus, the nickname. Perfect, right?
So was he: perfect. The perfect physical male specimen.
At the private school where I taught, Mack Morrison was the only man around in a sea of women.
Everyone wanted a piece of the hot single father of the sweet little boy.
I was riddled with jealousy, because they didn’t know that—to me—he was much more.
They didn’t know about our past.
He’d chosen my school for his son on purpose, because Mack and I, we had unfinished business.
As my friend Lorelai so eloquently put it: “Unfinished business between two people who are clearly attracted to each other is like an eternal case of blue balls.” And I was suffering in pain from my case.
I was still intensely attracted to Mack. I tried to resist him, immersing myself further into a relationship with another man just to protect my heart.
Not to mention, getting involved with a parent was strictly against school rules. But seeing Mack day in and day out was breaking me down.
And soon I might be breaking all the rules.
Author's note – Told in alternating points of view, Mack Daddy is a full-length standalone novel.
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REVIEW
RATING:
If you’ve read Sins of Sevin, you know what kind of angst
Penelope can produce. If you haven’t, well, I’ll say that she can DO angst and a
complicated one to boot! So you need to be in the mood, for starter, just
saying…
To me, that’s what this is, complicated angst. I even think
that having Mack Daddy as a title almost doesn’t match the overall tone of the
book. Because I think when I hear Mack Daddy, I almost expected light and
fluffy, but I knew better. This is Penelope after all.
And because I know how Penelope can build the feels, I was
prepared for all of it. To a point that right from the get-go, I can already
feel a 5-star read. However, as painful as what I am about to say, it wasn’t.
Sorry, let me clarify that. It was up until ¾-mark. For me, in a blink of an
eye, the series of events that followed right after that point pulled me out of
my headspace really quickly that it sadly lowered my rating.
But I’m getting ahead of myself… so let me just backtrack a
bit. This is a story about 2nd chances, a fave trope. But with 2nd
chances of course, there’s gotta be a reason why it didn’t work the 1st
time, right? Such is Mack and Frankie’s story.
They started out as friends, as in really good friends. But
things couldn’t move forward b/w them because something happened. In time, we
found out why. Meanwhile, people’s lives do go on. There are more people
involved now which complicates things in tenfolds. And on top of that, there
are all these unresolved feelings…
Mack is a good man. He has valid reasons why things unfolded
the way they did. But what’s super clear is how he felt about Frankie. Frankie,
on the other hand, understood why things unfolded the way they did. She learned
how to move forward, but did she really? Frankie is nowhere near the unassuming
person she thinks she is, and Mack saw that. And Frankie had the right quietude
and fortitude to her that Mack needed. In essence, they complemented each other
the way only a perfect couple do. Sigh… When their next turn finally came, it unfolded
in the most delish manner. With Mack and his dirty thoughts and crassness
juxtaposed with the sweetest words oozing with sincerity, Frankie didn’t stand
a chance, sweet dang!
Add in now the other players, and some people are meant to
get hurt, no two ways about it. That part I understood. Whether it’s outrightly
incorporated in any romance stories or not, there will always be winners, ie,
the H&h, and there will be losers. In this case, it didn’t mean that I took
pleasure in the minor players’ feelings because I certainly did not, but my
feelings towards Mack and Frankie just took precedence. This part may challenge
some romance readers, I’m telling you now.
This now brings me to the part that made me struggle. There
was so much happening in the last quarter that as intense as they were, they
all just came barreling down so fast that by the end, everything just felt
conveniently resolved. I found that the biggest shame. In my head, Mack and
Frankie were so developed that I was really drawn in to their journey, and to
give that rushed last bits felt like a disservice to them, to put it bluntly. Oy!
I think just a tad more pages would've helped.
So I would recommend it? I can't fully say yes, but I wouldn't say no either...
so I guess it depends...
Penelope Ward is a New York Times, USA Today and #1 Wall Street Journal Bestselling author. She’s a fifteen-time New York Times bestseller of twelve novels.
Having grown up in Boston with five older brothers, she spent most of her twenties as a television news anchor, before switching to a more family-friendly career. She is the proud mother of a beautiful 12-year-old girl with autism and a 10-year-old boy. Penelope and her family reside in Rhode Island.
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Thanks for dropping by!
~Leftie
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