Give It Up
Lori Foster
Zebra (Kensington Books
2015, 384p
Copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Blurb {from the publisher/Goodreads.com}:
Some Like It Hot
Family practitioner Cary Rupert wants Nora Chilton so badly he can barely keep a hold of his stethoscope. Now he’s out to prove that when it comes to loving her forever, he’s just what the doctor ordered…
Playing Doctor
Dr. Axel Dean likes his women with sensual moxie, not virginal innocence. But when Libby Preston won’t take no for an answer, Axel is more than willing to administer the cure…
He Sees You When You’re Sleeping
What Booker Dean wants for Christmas isn’t under the tree, it’s right next door. Frances Kennedy is everything Booker desires…and the gift he has planned for her involves a lot of delicious unwrapping…
Give It Up is a bind-up of three novellas revolving around three males – two, Axel and Booker are brothers. The third Cary is friends with both and like Axel, a doctor although he’s a GP whereas Axel is an OB-GYN.
The first story was probably the best in terms of establishing a connection between the two characters. Booker, despite having a girlfriend (who bizarrely hits on his brother and he is okay with it because it saves him having to dump her. Hmm) is in love with his neighbour Frannie and desperate to be with her. I liked the two of them together in their interactions but I think it would’ve been a bit more fun if we’d had a bit more of pining Booker, something to really establish why they cared about each other. It’s pretty hard to really get into them as a couple when you know so little about them.
The second story revolves around Cary and his infatuation with Nora Chilton, who works at the office of his friend Axel. Cary has been attempting to get Nora to go out with him for a long time but she always refuses him. A chance overhearing of a conversation between Nora and another employee finally gives Cary the reason why – and the ammunition he needs to be able to take things to that next level. This one was the one I wanted to read the most and it was just okay to be honest. The biggest problem with it (and the rest of them too) is that they’re just so short which really doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for showing. Instead we have lots of telling and a lot of instalove. The author attempts to navigate this in two of the stories by having the characters already in love with each other before the stories begin but to be honest, because as a reader you don’t get to experience it, it falls a bit flat. I thought Nora’s reasoning for avoiding Cary at least made sense but once Cary seemed to know her reason, it was like her protests had never existed and everything just fell into place like magic in about three minutes.
The third story was a bit of a mess, to be honest. I think with time to actually develop, had it of been a full length romance novel, it could’ve been a decent story. There was definitely some good conflict – Axel is significantly older than Libby and I always like to see those stories done well, rather than just a catalyst for having a relationship fail. He’s a self-confessed manwhore and Libby was a virgin which has been super overdone but Libby had motivations that had probably seen her put any romance etc on the backburner. Those reasons also gave her strength of character and determination and I think she was probably by far the most interesting female character included here. However because they met at the beginning of this story, it felt even faster than the rest of them and my head was spinning at the speed of which Axel went from basically boning anything that moved and being gone in the morning, to forsaking all others for a girl he hadn’t even physically been with yet. It needed more time.
This was a super quick read and if you were after stories you can read in an hour or so that aren’t too deep, they’re probably perfect. If you like more depth and character development then you’re likely to find these quite wanting.
6/10
Book #175 of 2015
All The Books I Can Read 
I always feel that way about romance short stories. They are cute but not fulfilling. Great review!