Zoe and the Tormented Tycoon by Kate Hewitt

First Published: 1 October 2010
Publisher:
Pages: 192
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Finished Date: 29 December 2011

Blurb from Goodreads

Everyone's talking about Zoe Balfour—the illegitimate heiress! She flies to New York to discover more about her biological family and goes a little wild, shocking even herself by spending one night with a gorgeous stranger….
The gradual loss of his sight has caused Manhattan mogul Max Monroe to close himself off from the world—a wife and child are most certainly not on his agenda! How will Zoe, once just a spoiled socialite and now unexpectedly pregnant, unlock the dark heart of a man who may never see his own child?

My Rating

My Review

5 words. What a waste of time. I tried liking the book, but I really couldn't. As I got to the end, all I could think of was why why why did I even bother reading this book? Sure, the lessons the characters learn are pretty applicable to real life. But the story is just sooo cliche and really rather shallow. The pace of the book was way too fast and abrupt with many things left unexplained. Even the romance was practically non-existent. After reading the whole book, I honestly do not know what I just read. Really.

Let's start with Zoe. So she just found out she's illegitimate and she's so so sad because of it. She built her identity around who her parents were and so when she found out she had no blood connection with her father, she was superrrr sad and started self-pitying. Ok fine, acceptable. Your whole life suddenly shatters in front of you, sure, you'll break down a while. But I really can't stand it when people keep running from their problems. For a while, fine. But she's been running for so damn long it annoys me. Omg I'm getting annoyed talking about her. What's next... Yeah, the fact that she's a freaking socialite that really can't seem to do anything just gets on my nerves. Sure, maybe she's not very smart. But that doesn't mean she has to party the whole day and spend Daddy's money. Ugh. I hate heroines like that. She's freaking 26. Grow up, already? And I honestly don't believe she can fool herself that she's happy for soooo many years. Omg I cannot talk about her anymore. Does she have good points? I'm sure she does, she is pretty understanding and she can be sweet. But I can't like her because I feel her bad points far outweigh the good.

As for Max. He's going blind. Yeah, that's bad. And he's another one who starts self-pitying. But it's not so bad! Still. He lets his self-pity get in the way of everything and if Zoe hadn't gotten pregnant, he just might have lost his one and only chance at true love. Though i'm a bit skeptical of that. Ok. So his past was skipped over really quickly. I mean, it obviously caused him a lot of harm. But why didn't the author cover it more? I felt it was just brushed over and it wasn't given the weight it deserved.

Ok but his self-pity I can understand. I mean losing your sight is not easy. And it can cause you to lose your sense of security when you can't even perform basic tasks. Put that with the fact that he has a fear of not being able to see because of his past and I can understand why he's so insecure. But Zoe, I just cannot understand it. Yes, I agree, it's pretty bad, suddenly realizing she isn't who she is. But how does that affect her identity, her own uniqueness?

One thing that I felt was really lacking was the communication between them. I mean, you don’t just fall in love for no reason at all, do you? You can’t just look at someone and next moment you realise you love that person, right? There must be some interaction and I felt it was really lacking in this book. Its like a lot of the book was full of her insecurity issues. There was very little memorable parts between them. I don’t know, I just couldn’t see how they were in love. I just didn’t feel it. I felt like it was more of a grateful thing. And maybe lust.

The book was a little unrealistic too. I mean seriously. Which semi-blind person can just sense the person they “love” in the room? I honestly don’t think anyone can just sense it. And for goodness sake, he could just “see” her when he could barely see a thing else. Its just a tad unbelievable.

When I first started writing this review, I intended to give it 2 stars. After the 2nd para, I've decided it's a definite 1. And pardon me if the review isn't up to standard, it's my first review in about a month? But this book just inspired me to write a review. Gosh. I hope never to read this type of book again. I'm sorry, i know I'm mean, but I honestly can't help it.

I mean the storyline is pretty interesting. Most books don’t have a hero that is going blind with no sudden resolution of that problem in the end. So yes, it was unique in that sense. But I didn’t really see a HEA. I was kinda left hanging, not really knowing whether they would somehow work everything out.

And honestly. I can’t stand this. Is it really so coincidental that their protection failed the one time they made love and thus causing her to have a baby? Sure, I don’t mind babies being part of the plot, but I really can’t stand the whole plot resting on the baby. I’m trying to say that without the baby, nothing would have happened in the book. The two of them would have just gone on with their lives, probably never seeing each other again, just remembering that one amazing night they spent together.

Sigh, all in all, this was a book I just could not enjoy. Sure, it was different, but I felt it just didn’t have enough to make the romance believable and the love obvious. Too much time was spent on how each person felt rather than that essential communication between the characters for them to fall in love. Its not a book I would recommend to anyone. Its quite a pity though, the book could have been better if the characters didn’t spend so much time self-pitying. The one redeeming quality was that both of them “saw the light” in the end!