3: Well-developed romance
Shalvis' work is hit and miss for me. Sometimes she does a good job developing likeable characters and a believable romance, and sometimes her characters are trite and shallow, resulting in no firm basis for a romance."Aftershock," I'm happy to say, is the best I've read of her work, and one of the better Temptations I've read in the past couple years. Amber and Dax are great characters. Amber's very controlled and unemotional, but we're given enough information to understand why she acts the way she does. And Dax is wonderful -- passionate, loving, and full of everything I love in a romance hero. He is patient as he tries to coax Amber into trusting him and believing in their feelings for each other. But, at the same time, he makes mistakes, resulting in a well-rounded, plausible character. Shalvis does a fabulous job of developing the relationship between them. Their emotions are believable, and their mistakes understandable. In addition, the relationship between them develops at a reasonable pace. They're given the time for defenses to break down -- for emotion to truly develop. A wonderful book in the Temptation line! Enjoy.
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