Fighting Fair

Fighting Fair
by Anne Calhoun

Natalie Copeland is tired of fighting for a marriage that in her eyes doesn't even exist anymore. Her husband basically ignores her and takes her for granted in favor of his business goals. She makes a last ditch effort to save her marriage with couple's counseling, which her husband can't even be bothered to show up on time to. Shane doesn't really see the problem, as far as he is concerned Natalie knew what she was going into and the time it would take to meet his goals.

Frankly speaking, I did not care for this story. It is all about Shane's wants and needs. When he meets a goal at work he looks around the celebratory party and realizes he has no clue where his wife is. When he tracks her down he finds her having a business dinner with another man and sparks fly. I'll admit it is really well written, I empathized with Natalie and it was all too easy to get into her head at the start of the book. But it doesn't get better after the start of the fight scene. Shane's method of "winning" her back feels like it is STILL all about him and his wants and needs and nothing really about her. Some of my issue with this is likely due to the shorter format, there simply was not enough time for me to make the transition between anger and hurt to passion, which means there was a really spicy scene that normally I would have enjoyed but instead left me cold.

Since it was well written I will probably try another longer book to see how it pans out, but this probably isn't a good intro as a new reader to Anne Calhoun's works.