Forbidden Promises by Synithia Williams

 

Welcome Back, Booklovers! I'm working on reading at least one book I own from the backlist a month and this was one I got as a free download last year. It sounded messy from the synopsis so I was intrigued.

Youngest daughter India Robidoux has returned just as her brother Byron is kicking off his campaign for senate. She's in between jobs and visiting her family for the first time in awhile. Papa Robidoux is the patriarch dead set on controlling the family image and running his children's lives. It's business before everything else and he wants India to stick around and help make her brother's image look good. The only problem is India will have to work with her brother's best friend Travis who also happens to be her sister's ex husband and her first love. 

As someone who used to watch soap operas on and off from age 11 or 12 up until a few years ago you can tell how much Synithia is a fan. I gave up on soaps because I got tired of the lack of diversity and I ran out of couples to root for. And ironically dove further into romance books to give me what I needed. But I was always more invested in individual couples vs family dynamics. If you watched soaps for the complicated family drama than you'll love this one.

This one is set in The South and Grant Robidoux was giving me Black JR while this book was giving me Dallas vibes remake vibes(the original was before my time but I did see some of it in reruns). Between Grant's constant meddling in his children's love lives and his mistress' presence, Byron getting engaged to strengthen his image for the election, Elaina's drinking problem and trouble at their family's tobacco company, and Travis' complicated relationship with his parents; there's no lack of drama.

It's not uncommon at all for couples to get together after being related through marriage or even sharing half siblings. That type of set up isn't really something I've read in books so I was curious to see how she'd tackle it.

This was actually a very slow burn second chance romance. India and Travis tip-toed around each other for much of the book fighting the pull to be together because they didn't want to hurt her sister Elaina. At first I wasn't rooting for them to be together. It was clear Elaina hadn't emotionally moved on from the marriage even though she and Travis constantly stated they never loved each other. And there still seemed to be a bit of spark between them. It also didn't help that they were married for five years. I felt more could've been explored with why they stayed together for so long. 

But then closer towards the end of the story after an out of town getaway they finally clicked for me. I felt the chemistry while they bonded doing fun activities and started to believe in their love and friendship.

I did listen to some of this via audiobook so I could listen on work breaks and the narration was killing me softly. Those "Southern" accents especially for the men weren't it! She would do this deep raspy gravely voice. 

All in all this kept me entertained with the constant moving pieces and was a fairly quick read.