Facade (Games, #2)

by Nyrae Dawn

[Angie]

I received an ARC through NetGalley.

I’m a bit conflicted on my feelings for Facade. On one hand, I really enjoyed the interactions between Delaney and Adrian. I also really liked getting to know Adrian better. He’s definitely not just the pot head party boy we met in Charade. However, I felt like there was way too much going on. Delaney’s father got drunk and ran over Adrian’s nephew when Adrian was suppose to be watching him. Adrian is understandably devastated and blames himself, using drugs and alcohol to help numb his feelings. Delaney has already talked to Adrian’s sister and earned forgiveness, so now she wants to talk to Adrian in hopes of helping them both move on. She doesn’t expect to fall for him though.

In addition to Delaney wanting to apologize to Adrian on behalf of her father (at least I think that’s what she was doing), she’s also dealing with her suicidal mother. And on top of that, her mother hates Delaney for saving her the first time she tried to take her life. Delaney wants a relationship with her mom, but she pushes her away out of jealousy. Yep, her mother is jealous because her daughter spent more time her husband. Delaney is a fixer, and desperately wants to fix all of the broken relationships and people around her. It’s a bit much. There’s no way someone can shoulder the blame for everyone and try to repair all of the damage. I think the author tried to cram in too many problems for Delaney to handle at once, while also developing a relationship with Adrian.

I did like the romance for the most part in Facade. Adrian definitely knows how to handle women, but Delaney is different for him. Things developed slowly at first, but once they started getting close, it developed way too fast. The story supposedly covers two months of Adrian and Delaney together, but it seemed more like two weeks before she was declaring her love. They barely know each other, and she’s keeping a HUGE secret from him for the entire book. I was getting a little annoyed with her constantly backing out of telling him why she really moved to town. Their steamy scenes are super steamy though, so I enjoyed that aspect more than the actual relationship development.

Facade wasn’t as good as Charade for me. There were too many personal issues for just two people, and there were quite a few coincidences that seemed thrown in just for extra drama. I would have liked to have gotten more of Adrian’s healing process. The whole story was building up to that moment where Delaney confesses, then nothing really comes of it. The story jumps ahead by another two months and Adrian has already made a ton of progress. I love stories of damaged people coming together, finding happiness, and learning to heal, but the author kind of skipped over a lot of that and just gave us the happy ending.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.