Review: Dodge the Bullet by Christy Hayes

Description:
Sarah Woodward is a mother with a mission. Two years after her husband is killed in a plane crash, Sarah decides to move her kids away from their fast paced life in suburban Atlanta to small town Hailey, Colorado. Her young sons aren’t happy to leave their friends, but Sarah feels the family needs a fresh start with fewer complications.

Sarah doesn’t know a Colorado Senator has earmarked her ranch for purchase and he’ll do anything to get it. Unwilling to sell, she dismisses his continued offers as an annoyance and moves ahead by improving the land with the help of a sexy stranger, A.J. Dodge, unwittingly sent her way by the very senator who needs her land.  (shortened from Goodreads)

Details:
Published May 2nd 2011 by Christy Hayes
ASIN: B004YZB9DO
 
Review:
I’m a man.  I have a lifetime membership to the man club ( my man card says so & my testicles and penis prove it).
 
So, when Christy Hayes requested I review her ROMANCE NOVEL, I wasn’t so sure if I could enjoy the genre enough to give an honest opinion.  I found out that I am man enough to read and really, REALLY enjoy reading a romance novel.  Dodge the Bullet was such an easy read.  I can totally understand why women the world over read romance novels—they’re just fun!
 
Christy Hayes (a fellow Southerner…WOOT WOOT!) weaved a tale of intrigue and mystery, revealing bits and pieces as needed.  She created characters that I loved and hated, very real, experiencing real doubts and fears.  Dodge the Bullet is like a romantic dramedy (drama-comedy).  I like that she built the story, established a relationship between Dodge and Sarah before anything remotely romantic began.  Their relationship of mutual hate and disgust was humorous.  And FINALLY things heat up between them…and life interrupts.  It’s so, real.  I like that.  Even though this is marketed as a romance novel, and the sexual tension is more exaggerated than non-romance novels, the story is complete, fleshed out.  I was surprised in a good way.
 
Dodge is a tortured man.  Tortured by his past, by things he did or didn’t do, by the townspeople now that’s he’s back in Hailey.  I got tired of his self-deprecation, of his I-can’t-have-love-because-I-swore-it-off attitude.  The best Dodge got was when he was doing the protecting the Woodwards.  I just got bored with his woe-is-me mess.
 
Another character complaint I have is that many of the men in authority positions were chauvinistic pigs.  They were unbelievable jerk-wads.  Maybe it was supposed to add to the story, but seemed oddly out of place and didn’t make a difference.  At all.
 
Dodge the Bullet could have used one more edit.  I found several grammatical errors and sentences that were rewritten without removing additional words (and hence, taking a couple reads through to understand what was being said).  The writing style is a little choppy, and I never quite got used to it—the story was told from several different perspectives, often changing characters in the middle of a scene to complete the chapter.
 
As a whole, Christy Hayes wrote a story that had this man hooked, at least until the danger was squelched.  I can’t say that I read the last couple chapters word for word.  They were emotional, overly mushy.  The ending was tied up in a neat little package, with a big shiny bow.
 
3.5 Stars: Good, easy summer read.
 
Many Adventures,
Richard
 
*This ebook was provided to me by the author*