Review: Fool Me Twice

Title: Rules for Reckless #2: Fool Me Twice

Author: Meredith Duran

Date of Publication: March 25, 2014

Formats Available: Paperback, E-book

Buy This Book: Amazon.com

Synopsis: Sensible and lonely, Olivia Mather survives by her wits—and her strict policy of avoiding trouble. But when she realizes that the Duke of Marwick might hold the secrets of her family’s past, she does the unthinkable, infiltrating his household as a maid. She’ll clean his study and rifle through his papers looking for information.

Alastair de Grey has a single reason to live: vengeance. More beautiful than Lucifer, twice as feared, and thrice as cunning, he’ll use any weapon to punish those who fooled and betrayed him—even an impertinent maid who doesn’t know her place. But the more fascinated he becomes with the uppity redhead, the more dangerous his carefully designed plot becomes. For the one contingency he forgot to plan for was falling in love…and he cannot survive being fooled again.

My Review:

Fool Me Twice started off with a lot of potential. I loved the idea of a maid searching the house of a rich Duke to clear her name; however as the novel quickly started to take on darker tones the less I started to like it. Though the writing itself was good I just couldn't get my self into the story because of how much I ended up hating the characters and lackluster plot.

The number one thing I disliked about this novel was our hero, Alastair. Cruel, abusive, and brooding, the more I read about him the more I hated him. There was absolutely no affection between him and Olivia and he spent the bulk of the novel plotting all the ways in which he wanted to hurt her and then (sort of) forcing her to have sex with him. Though she never said no she never said yes either and that bordered so closely to the edge of rape that I just wasn't okay with it. Not only that but Alastair didn't even feel a bit of remorse later, I might have had at least a smidge of respect for him if he felt bad later, but he only got more abusive as the novel went on, making me absolutely hate him. 

Olivia wasn't as bad as Alastair but I didn't particularly care for her either. She had an interesting back story but I spent most of the novel just plain confused about what that whole back story was. I think Duran was going for a slow reveal of information to keep the reader guessing but she didn't reveal enough in the beginning of the story to make me curious about what happened next, I was just plain confused. Not to mention she was such a pushover when it came to Alastair; instead of standing up for herself she lets him use her over and over again. There were moments she was so dumb I wanted to throw this novel across the room. 

Honestly, the only redeemable aspect of this novel was the cover, and maybe some of the side characters. Polly, Jones, and the other maids occasionally me laugh and even though they irritated me a little sometimes I enjoyed the banter between them and Oliva. They were the most real characters in the whole novel, though annoying they added at least a bit of lightheartedness to an otherwise dark and abusive tale. I didn't like them, but they were honestly the most likable characters in the whole novel.

Though the premise sounds interesting I just can't recommend this novel. Fans of Fifty Shades of Grey and the like may enjoy it but as someone who doesn't care much for semi- abusive characters and dubious consent I just couldn't enjoy this one.

1/5