The Restless Heart - Tami Hoag

I don't read many books that are singularly romance novels, though I AM a hopeless romantic--I like my romantic suspense novels and I HAVE indulged in few romantic comedies and like to enjoy other genres if they happen to have a side of romance to accompany them.

I read this book because it is listed as the first book in the Doucet romantic suspense series and introduces to us the first Doucet sibling, Remy, as well as mentioning the protagonist of the second Doucet book, Lucky. I came across the last book in this series A Thin Dark Line at a warehouse sale and had bought it in tandem with several other warehouse sale books (17 books bought for $7, yo!). And so with the interest in the series itself and my OCD-ness for reading book series in their proper order...

This book presents as a pretty traditional, standard romance novel with lots of lusting, lots of emotions being flung around, and some angst to wrap it all up. I'm not going to say that I didn't enjoy it, but it wasn't the best book in the world. The beginning of the book was kind of aggravating, but the story got better as the book progressed, so I'm not complaining too much--I might have taken offense to Remy's whole spiel about how women should know how to cook and clean and take care of children and automatically, naturally have maternal instincts and how it's absurdly ridiculous that Danielle doesn't have any of these qualities.

If fictional characters were tangible, I may have kicked the man in the shins myself, so I took pleasure in watching the kids do it for me.

Speaking of the kids... this is how I know this book is purely fictional and written in an old-fashioned sense geared toward a warm-hearted audience. It utilizes the whole "kids do the darnedest things" cliche in the most comically unbelievable fashion to create endearment towards the book. Because it's fun to watch a bunch a kids wreak havoc in the fictional world so long as some nice guy can come by and fix their behavior without resorting to hiring a drill sergeant. In real life, behavior like that probably wouldn't fly no matter how rich you are.

Overall, this book made for a good few hours of entertainment.