The One by Belle Ami Summary: How well do you really know the one you love? An erotic novel full of obsessive love, dark secrets, and unquenchable lust, Belle Ami’s The One proves that no one is quite who they seem.
Adelia, a rising star in the equestrian world, is still reeling from her parents’ deaths in a tragic car accident when she meets green energy investment banker Miles Bremen and his charming yet inscrutable twin sister, Karolin. With his insatiable lust, Miles ignites a passion within Adelia she never knew existed, and the two quickly find themselves entwined in a torrid affair that knows no bounds. Little does Adelia know, however, that her meeting of the Bremen twins was no accident. Carefully selected as “the one” for her unsettling resemblance to the emotionally and physically damaged Karolin, Adelia is targeted to marry Miles and bear the children that Karolin cannot have.
The One is a razor edge mystery that enfolds on the playgrounds of the super rich, from Trump Tower to the Hamptons and Palm Beach; to the Amalfi Coast aboard Miles’s mega-yacht Green Way, The One is irresistible as the reader is drawn into Adelia’s journey through a suspenseful – and erotic world. An edge-of-your-seat thriller that will leave readers breathless in more ways than one, The One is an irresistible journey through—new territory that fans of romantic fiction are bound to love.
Source: I received a copy from Netgalley
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Review:
It’s not often that I read a book and have absolutely nothing but terrible things to say about it. It always makes me feel guilty and sad when it’s a review book, but I promised to always be honest in a review and so I am. The One had an intriguing synopsis. It appealed to me when I was skimming the Read Now books available on Netgalley and I figured it would be an erotic novel with a lot of plot and mystery rather than just short bursts of random sex scenes like so many in it’s genre. Unfortunately, the synopsis was a bit misleading.
The book wasn’t very well written and didn’t do a very good job of building up the characters or the motivations of anyone. I was bombarded by so much bland detail. Everything was laid out as simply as possible and there was no mystery, vivid descriptions, or very good imagery. The synopsis contains more descriptive and mysterious words than the book did, though it tells the reader way too much, as that is the entire plot of the novel and there’s nothing else that happens.
The novel was written in third person, which wouldn’t have been terrible if the characters weren’t revealing their motivations from the very beginning. Instead of getting a thriller where a woman distrusts her husband, I got a poorly written explanation of how a naive girl is swayed by an obviously suspicious guy who mapped out some plans with his sister. Their love story happened so quickly and it was obvious to me that Miles was overbearing, pushy, and suspicious. The author never gave me a moment where I fell for it or started to like him and he never warmed me over, which was disappointing because he supposedly did fall for Adelia on accident and I would have liked to see those emotions play out better on the pages. The dialog was perhaps the most frustrating part of the book. The overuse of exclamation points made otherwise normal dialog seem forced and cheesy. There were entirely too many exclamation points in normal conversation.
The One could have been a pretty interesting and suspenseful story if it was better written, but it was not at all enjoyable to read. I hate to bash the writing that much, but I think it’s a very big problem that so many “books” end up on the shelves when they read like a first draft/outline of ideas and never tie the themes together, build characters, or show the reader how something came to be instead of just telling us. I’m still not sure how or why the beginning of the book exists in the same story. I read the entire book and even the preview for The One and More and I was still a bit lost about that part.
I do not recommend this book at all. I’m normally optimistic and try to think of someone a book I don’t like might appeal to, but I don’t think it’s fair to any readers to speak highly of a poorly written book.
