Kimani, $7.99, ISBN 978-1-335-00585-4
Contemporary Romance, 2019

Savion Monroe from all appearances is a serious CEO all about work and other matters of gravity. In truth, he likes to write poetry, which he does in that one book of his that no one is allowed to take a peek at. His muse is Jazmin Boyd, a television producer, and she inspires him to write all kinds of nice verses. I assume they are nice, because for the life of me, I can’t make myself appreciate poetry.

Anyway, the fun begins when these two are selected as winners for a contest meant for couples. The prize is a lovely getaway to an amazing resort, blah blah blah, and tickets to a Brian McKnight concert. Ooh, that fellow is Jazmin’s favorite singer, and tickets for the show had all been sold out, so she asks Savion to please, pretty please, let’s just pretend to be an actual couple so that she can attend the concert.

He agrees, of course, and I’m sure people will be able to guess what will happen to these two eventually.

Kianna Alexander’s Forever with You is easily one of the better end of the road Kimani stories that I’ve read. I know, the bar is set quite low by other entries that seem to be brought to everyone by the authors and the letters D, G, A, and F, but this one actually reads like—imagine that—an actual story and not a contractual obligation.

For one, the story doesn’t feel like it’s something cobbled together in perfunctory manner using the same 20 tropes randomly picked out from a jar. Sure, the tropes are there, but the author tries to keep things interesting. The hero isn’t a walking rehash, and the heroine is smart, self-aware, and capable.

Also, the pacing is fine, the atmosphere is great, the conversations flows naturally… let’s just say that I often pause while reading this to check the copyright date to be sure that I hadn’t picked up a Kimani story from, say, 10 years ago by accident.

What, I’m actually enjoying myself, buying the chemistry between the two lead characters, and thinking that the whole thing is adorable? Imagine that! If this had been a meal, I’m dining well and happy so hallelujah to that.

One thing I should point out is that, being that this is officially the last entry in a series within the Kimani line, it’s full of pre-existing relationships. In fact, Savion and Jazmin already know one another well by the time this one opens, and people that haven’t read the last few entries may have a challenging time figuring out the who and the what in the first few chapters. It’s a really packed and busy story, and worse, the story opens at a wedding so the reader is deluged with a large cast of characters.

I’m actually glad, though, that the author resists having the characters explain to one another who is who and who is doing what, because that kind of thing is always a hard sell when it’s between folks that are supposed to be a close-knit family.

So, why this one still gets “only” three oogies? Well, it’s the last minute dramatic conflict, one that is already spoiled by the synopsis on the back cover. Savion’s poetry work is inadvertently shown on a show covering their getaway, and he blames Jazmin for that.

The problem here is that Savion gets so disproportionately angry and even petty that it feels so out of character for him. I know, he’s a poet, so he’s a drama type that probably eats cakes of misery and dine on melancholy, but come on, she tries to explain herself and he just puts on that sulky gorilla act and waves her aside.

If this would cause him to react like that, what happens when they have to face more serious issues in their relationship later on? Sure, you can say that he’s so rich that it’s unlikely that they will ever have any serious issues, but come on. The way he reacts here, who knows what he will say and do should, say, she puts her toothbrush on the wrong side of the sink or something, really. Maybe he will turn into Arthur Critchit from The Vault of Horror for all I know.

I’d have been perfectly content had the two characters just sailed off into the sunset without that drama, which in the end doesn’t really end anything to the romance or the story. If anything. this drama ruins Savion considerably in my eyes.

This is why, no matter much I enjoy the rest of the story, I can’t give this one the extra oogie it probably deserves. The author has sabotaged her story so close to the end game, and for what, exactly?

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