Apparently, It Was Supposed to be Heartwarming.....

Last night, in an effort to up my reading instead of t.v. watching, I finished a Harlequin Superromance. This is my favorite series romance, because the stories are usually really good, I tend to like the characters, and someday I hope to publish something by them. Maybe. If I ever get around to you know, writing anything that isn't a Facebook status or a blog post.

Anyway. I finish the book on my Kindle and I'm already like, "I didn't like the book." I hardly ever say that. But this time, I really didn't like the book. It was the last in a series that portray different characters who have experienced missing children firsthand - a sister, the two detectives working cold cases, etc. This one featured the two detectives who started working together to solve a bunch of cold cases that are somehow linked.

Only, I really didn't care if the two got together. That is technically the whole point of the book. But in this case, it was completely overshadowed by the question of whether they will ever find out what happened to two missing girls: one six months old and one two years old at the time of their disappearances. And how are they linked? So I'm skipping all the blah blah blah romance stuff and going straight to what happens.

And what happens is this: the sister of the detective was either kidnapped and sold through an illegal adoption/baby selling ring or killed when her mother was kidnapped and raped. The other case involved a missing two year old, who apparently disappeared out of thin air. They caught the rapist and the detective (the sister of the six month old, with me so far?) tries to find out what he did with her sister. But he won't talk. And her mother (the rape victim and mother of six month old) doesn't remember because of traumatic amnesia plus blows to the head.

Blah, blah, blah. Story happens. Is romance brewing? Yes. Blah, blah, blah blah. Oh, and what happened to that two year old that disappeared from her front yard and how is she connected to this other baby?

They find out what happened. The baby was taken with the mother, probably under threat "Come with me or I'll kill your baby." Of course, baby is scared and hungry and crying. So while the mother is HOLDING her against her chest, trying to protect her and comfort her, the rapist bashes her head in with a rock and then rapes the mother and beats her up. She can't remember what happens to the baby and it leads her to alcohol but she somehow manages to raise her other daughter (the detective) who is hell bent of getting closure and finding out what happened to the baby.

Flash to the two year old that went missing. Apparently, it's the detective all along, who was kidnapped by the alcoholic and disturbed (not that any one can blame her) mother of the murdered six month old. So she's been trying to solve her own kidnapping case - which would have been awesome, except for the murdered six month old.

And I DIDN'T CARE! She met her biological family and got married to the guy (the other detective) and it's such a HAPPY ENDING. Except it isn't. Because the six month old got murdered and the mother is now locked up in a psych ward (although that's where she needed to be all along).

And I finish the book and then cry for like ten minutes, because I have a one year old and remember what she was like at 6 months vividly and if someone had kidnapped us and then killed her in front of me, while I was trying to comfort and protect her. Well, I'd just go ahead and kill myself, none of this becoming an alcoholic or abusing drugs. And I tell Nick the story and he's all - you have to stop reading about this stuff. And I'm trying to explain that it's supposed to be a fun, happy romance.

And then I eat about six chocolate chip cookies and don't even care when my one year old wakes me up all night long.

So yeah, Harlequin - that supposed romance. It sucked. I couldn't get past the other storyline, which overwhelmed the romance part and basically ruined the book. You couldn't have maybe told the author NOT to kill off the baby? To let her be alive somewhere in some kind of totally against the odds story? Because I can't handle this kind of thing anymore. And it's STILL on my mind. And now, I have take some kind of "learn how to kick ass" class so that if anyone ever comes near me, I can totally take off his head with my bare hands.

The End.