Against the Wind by Kat Martin

This was the first book that I’ve read by Kat Martin, so I went into it with no preconceived ideas of what to expect from her storytelling and writing style. I know she’s published several books, so expected, at the very least, to enjoy the story, which for the most part, I did.

While I think that the premise of the story, and Jackson Raines as a character, were good, I felt like the writing itself was inconsistent. Sometimes it flowed really well, and other times it felt choppy. Sometimes I was able to feel what I was reading, and other times not. For example, this room service order they received sounded more like the reading of the daily special from a menu. There was nothing about the scents of the food that might make it sound appealing, it was an inventory of what was on their plates. –

They ordered two filets, medium rare, and Jackson added a bottle of Stag’s Leap Napa Valley cabernet. The plates came piping hot with fully loaded baked potatoes, two big green salads, and there was a strawberry shortcake for dessert.

Other than to say that Jackson picked at his food, there was no indication of whether they enjoyed the meal, only that a paragraph or two later they were done. I can only explain it by saying it felt empty.

And then there were repeated unnecessary descriptions of the clothing that people were wearing, and it came across - to me anyway - as a fashion report. And after their first time making love, which felt very unexciting to me, Sarah was thinking to herself what a demanding and intense lover Jackson was. And even Jackson, when recounting their love making of the night before said to Sarah, “I’m a man, after all, and a fairly demanding lover.” Seriously, I went back several pages to see what I missed, and found nothing that convinced me that he was anything other than… average.

I won’t go into a lot of character details, because unfortunately, they didn’t really stand out to me, although Jackson was at least consistent in his feelings for Sarah, whose emotions were wishy washy at best. Now, given all she’d been through, that would have been understandable, but we then go back to the lack of emotional detail given to them.

I felt like the whole murder/on the run/investigation aspect of the story wasn’t quite as convincing as it could/should have been and I don’t want to go into detail about it and possibly ruin the story for anyone who might read it. But, while Jackson’s actions and emotions were consistent with what I might have expected from an alpha male, they were not at all in keeping with what Sarah’s, actions, a mother worried about her daughter’s safety, would have been. It just wasn’t something I was able to buy into and as a major part of the storyline, that was something I definitely needed in order to feel their fear and their desperation to solve the crime.

So, this is a hard book to rate, because I knew what the author was trying to tell me, I knew the emotions she was trying to convey, but those things didn’t actually come through, never became anything more than words on the page that never leapt out and grabbed me, convincing me to believe what I was being told or that what I was being told was important. Honestly, I was pretty disappointed, and just about the time I was ready to throw in the towel, something would happen, I’d actually feel drawn into the story and couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen next.

As I say, this is a hard book to rate, so I’ll break it down this way:


---Storyline and Character Potential – 4/5: I could see where the story was going and loved the idea of it.

---What was delivered – 2.5/5: As I said, I could see where it was going, but I didn’t feel it, never quite got there.

---Writing – 2/5: Again, it felt choppy and inconsistent in quality.

But that said, I have to admit, the Raines brothers, Jackson, Gabe and Dev, have me intrigued, and despite my less than stellar review of this book, I’m definitely planning to read Gabriel’s and Dev’s stories. How can that possibly be? you might ask. Well, I’ll tell you. There was so much potential in this book, and I’m hoping that in the next, that potential will be met, that the writing will flow consistently and will grab me, draw me in and compel me to keep reading as only sections of Against the Wind did.

2.75/5 stars

This story was provided to me by netgalley.com