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My Kind of Trouble is definitely very different from many other plus-size romance books I’ve read, and in a good way.
I like it when a plus-size romance novel doesn’t necessarily focus on the character coming to love their body and all of that.
In this book, our female lead is already very well aware of her charm, and her body is never really an issue or a plot point, which I absolutely appreciated.
Our female lead, Harmony, is a con artist who essentially goes after individuals who take advantage of others, and then she makes them pay for their crimes.
She takes money from them, saves some, and gives the rest back to the community.
This is primarily because her father was conned by a friend when she was younger, and because they lost everything, her father fell into depression. She grew up in a home that was no longer happy.
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Her business in this particular town she visits – where she meets the male lead – is to take her final revenge on the man who destroyed her family.
Our male lead, Preston, on the other hand, is a very shy, autistic librarian who is taking care of his younger sister, who is also autistic.
He’s trying his best to survive small-town politics and preserve the local library.
It’s been a while since I read a small-town romance, so I absolutely loved reading this one. I loved the dynamics of the couple.
I like it when the chemistry between characters is very evident, and even though I’ve read lots of opposites-attract romance books, I haven’t actually read a book where the male lead is the shy and reserved one while the female lead is much more outspoken.
Usually, especially in grumpy-sunshine romances, the male lead is the quieter but more assertive one and the female lead is all over the place but painfully naive. But in this case, it’s flipped – the female lead is the bold, daring one.
While running her con, Harmony has to interact with the male lead, and then they fall in love.
Naturally, she never tells him her true identity, which builds up to the third act, where the truth finally comes out and everything unravels.
I will say that the conclusion of this book was a little too easy and didn’t feel very natural to me.
It honestly felt like the author just wanted to wrap everything up without prolonging the conflict.
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On one hand, I appreciate that (because it avoids a long, dragged-out ending), but at the same time, the resolution didn’t feel fully earned.
Remember I said earlier that her modus operandi is to go after corrupt people in society, take their money, and give it back to the people?
Well, her plan for this town was to push the mayor to the wall and eventually blackmail him, so she could take his money and disappear.
I just had to sigh at that, because that kind of thing could never happen in my country.
Whenever I read, I tend to link up what happens in a book with my real-life experiences, and in this case, it just didn’t feel plausible.
In Nigeria, nobody really cares about a politician’s reputation. They don’t care about public image or maintaining any kind of clean record – everyone’s dirty laundry is already out there.
So it felt a little silly to me that her big revenge plan hinged on blackmailing a mayor about something scandalous. He simply wouldn’t have cared if this were Nigeria.
Still, I understand that in the book’s setting, it’s a big deal, but the stakes just didn’t feel high enough to me.
Because of this, I also felt like the antagonist’s villainy never really came through strongly.
We were constantly being told that he had done questionable things in the past, but it wasn’t fleshed out in a way that made me despise him.
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Sure, he did questionable things in the book, but not at the level that justified our heroine dedicating her entire life to revenge.
It felt a little odd that this wasn’t made a bigger deal.
We knew he ruined her father’s life, but that fact almost felt like a passing detail, quickly forgotten as we spent more time on the buildup to her blackmail plan.
That’s why the climax felt anticlimactic, even though it had the potential to be so much more.
That being said, the cover is absolutely gorgeous, and I loved the connection between the two characters.
Like I said earlier, this was genuinely a precious book – I just wish the execution had tied the plotlines together more cohesively.
And because of that very beautiful animated cover, I honestly didn’t expect it to be as steamy as it turned out to be.
I don’t know why I keep being surprised whenever an animated-cover romance turns out to be super spicy.
As someone who literally reads Tessa Bailey for fun, I really shouldn’t be shocked anymore, but somehow I always am.
This was a new-to-me author, so maybe that’s why it caught me off guard.
Still, I’m definitely going to check out everything else this author has written.
If you’ve read this book – whether you loved it or didn’t – let me know in the comments below.
And if you know another story where a con operation mixes with romance as a big driving force, I’d love a recommendation.
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