Official Review: The Rules Series by Hanleigh Bradley
Posted: 30 May 2016, 23:36
[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Rules Series" by Hanleigh Bradley.]
2 out of 4 stars
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Hanleigh Bradley takes a sizzling one-night stand and turns it into a not-so-sizzling book series with her books Broken Rules, Enforced Rules, and Revised Rules. Each book on its own is short and more of a novella. Because of this, I can only give very brief outlines of the plots to avoid spoilers. There is a focus on rules in the books, as the titles would suggest, but they don’t play as big a part in the story as one would think. The Rules Series is the book equivalent of an “okay” cinnamon bun. It’s sweet and tasty, but you’re not driven to go back for more.
First things first, we have to break the rules. In Broken Rules we start with Aurora Stone and her sudden need to break all of the rules that her parents made for her while growing up. At the very top of the list is sex before marriage. In a bar in London, this is how she meets Landon Peters, the other main character throughout the series. He has his own set of rules to keep him from forming close relationships with women and is naturally a controlling person. Aurora is a graduate student studying to be a teacher. She comes from a rich family, but resents the fact that she relies on them so much. Landon also comes from a rich family, but owns his own successful advertising business. After the one-night stand, the rest of the book is an excellent exploration of “what next?”. Along with trying to decide if they want to turn their sultry night together into something more, they are also introduced to family problems. I think it’s the best book in the series, aside from a very abrupt ending. Both characters are written realistically given the situation and their backgrounds.
Enforced Rules is the title of the second book, but is only relevant for part of it. Most of the story is Aurora and Landon dealing with issues introduced by secondary characters. Landon struggles with his rules while Aurora begins to struggle with the consequences of her broken rules. It’s essentially an extension of the first book. This book is also the introduction to what I like to call “Romantic Landon”. I’ll go into that later.
The last book in the series is Revised Rules. Once again, the rules are mostly title-only, aside from Aurora having to truly face up to repercussions from some rules that she broke. At this point, Aurora and Landon have made their initial relationship decision and spend the rest of story figuring out what to do next. Also, some spoiler things happen. This book heavily features Romantic Landon and introduces “Romantic Aurora”. I enjoyed Revised Rules more than Enforced Rules, but I think the ending could have been shorter.
Now to get into the lead characters and their “Romantic” counterparts. First, I will mention the way the narrative is set up. Each chapter is from either Aurora’s or Landon’s first-person perspective. The reader often sees the same scene from both perspectives. So, as I said earlier, I enjoyed the first book the most. Landon and Aurora were still trying to figure each other out and behave accordingly. Their narratives are interesting to read. This changes once they become more traditionally romantic. The narrative and dialogue are more like what one would imagine a person in love thinks and says as opposed to what he/she would actually say and think. It reminded me very much of the infamous romantic dialogue in the Star Wars prequels.
Other than the “Romantic” problem, the characters are well-written and realistic. I personally didn’t really like Aurora, but that’s because I think she would annoy me in real life. She’s not really afraid of breaking rules. She’s just afraid of making people not like her or be disappointed in her. This means that she does what she thinks others consider to be wrong and then is super wishy-washy about fessing up to it. She’s also the type of person that just goes along with everything, so she’s kind of boring for a main character.
Since this is a romance series, it’s time to get to nitty-gritty. I give it 4 out of 5 chili peppers in terms of sexual interaction. There are many graphic consensual sex scenes, but not a lot of sexual tension and the sex scenes don’t go on very long. Also, the constant use of the “F” bomb to refer to sex and the somewhat unhealthy relationship between Landon and Aurora are a put off.
This is the first series written by a very British author about very British characters and the writing reflects that. As an American, it was fun to read a book written in a different dialect. There are many British words and sentence structures not used in standard English, but they’re easy to understand and you get used to it.
I rate The Rules Series a 2 out of 4. It starts off really well, but then the shoe-horned-in drama and unrealistic romantic dialogue drag it down. These issues aside and ignoring the minor formatting errors (page numbers changing from Arabic to Roman numerals, for example), it’s really not a bad read. It was just not as good as it could have been and I don’t intend to read it again in the future. I recommend the series for those that enjoy a steamy romance with a side of possibly excessive drama. Those that like Fifty Shades of Grey may also enjoy it since Landon and Aurora kind of have a dominant/submissive thing going on. I think the series is a good start for the author and I look forward to seeing more from her in the future.
As for my usual disclaimer, I wouldn’t recommend the series for any readers under the age of 18. There is drinking, cussing, smoking, and graphic sex scenes. Many body parts are described in crude terms.
******
The Rules Series
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
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2 out of 4 stars
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Hanleigh Bradley takes a sizzling one-night stand and turns it into a not-so-sizzling book series with her books Broken Rules, Enforced Rules, and Revised Rules. Each book on its own is short and more of a novella. Because of this, I can only give very brief outlines of the plots to avoid spoilers. There is a focus on rules in the books, as the titles would suggest, but they don’t play as big a part in the story as one would think. The Rules Series is the book equivalent of an “okay” cinnamon bun. It’s sweet and tasty, but you’re not driven to go back for more.
First things first, we have to break the rules. In Broken Rules we start with Aurora Stone and her sudden need to break all of the rules that her parents made for her while growing up. At the very top of the list is sex before marriage. In a bar in London, this is how she meets Landon Peters, the other main character throughout the series. He has his own set of rules to keep him from forming close relationships with women and is naturally a controlling person. Aurora is a graduate student studying to be a teacher. She comes from a rich family, but resents the fact that she relies on them so much. Landon also comes from a rich family, but owns his own successful advertising business. After the one-night stand, the rest of the book is an excellent exploration of “what next?”. Along with trying to decide if they want to turn their sultry night together into something more, they are also introduced to family problems. I think it’s the best book in the series, aside from a very abrupt ending. Both characters are written realistically given the situation and their backgrounds.
Enforced Rules is the title of the second book, but is only relevant for part of it. Most of the story is Aurora and Landon dealing with issues introduced by secondary characters. Landon struggles with his rules while Aurora begins to struggle with the consequences of her broken rules. It’s essentially an extension of the first book. This book is also the introduction to what I like to call “Romantic Landon”. I’ll go into that later.
The last book in the series is Revised Rules. Once again, the rules are mostly title-only, aside from Aurora having to truly face up to repercussions from some rules that she broke. At this point, Aurora and Landon have made their initial relationship decision and spend the rest of story figuring out what to do next. Also, some spoiler things happen. This book heavily features Romantic Landon and introduces “Romantic Aurora”. I enjoyed Revised Rules more than Enforced Rules, but I think the ending could have been shorter.
Now to get into the lead characters and their “Romantic” counterparts. First, I will mention the way the narrative is set up. Each chapter is from either Aurora’s or Landon’s first-person perspective. The reader often sees the same scene from both perspectives. So, as I said earlier, I enjoyed the first book the most. Landon and Aurora were still trying to figure each other out and behave accordingly. Their narratives are interesting to read. This changes once they become more traditionally romantic. The narrative and dialogue are more like what one would imagine a person in love thinks and says as opposed to what he/she would actually say and think. It reminded me very much of the infamous romantic dialogue in the Star Wars prequels.
Other than the “Romantic” problem, the characters are well-written and realistic. I personally didn’t really like Aurora, but that’s because I think she would annoy me in real life. She’s not really afraid of breaking rules. She’s just afraid of making people not like her or be disappointed in her. This means that she does what she thinks others consider to be wrong and then is super wishy-washy about fessing up to it. She’s also the type of person that just goes along with everything, so she’s kind of boring for a main character.
Since this is a romance series, it’s time to get to nitty-gritty. I give it 4 out of 5 chili peppers in terms of sexual interaction. There are many graphic consensual sex scenes, but not a lot of sexual tension and the sex scenes don’t go on very long. Also, the constant use of the “F” bomb to refer to sex and the somewhat unhealthy relationship between Landon and Aurora are a put off.
This is the first series written by a very British author about very British characters and the writing reflects that. As an American, it was fun to read a book written in a different dialect. There are many British words and sentence structures not used in standard English, but they’re easy to understand and you get used to it.
I rate The Rules Series a 2 out of 4. It starts off really well, but then the shoe-horned-in drama and unrealistic romantic dialogue drag it down. These issues aside and ignoring the minor formatting errors (page numbers changing from Arabic to Roman numerals, for example), it’s really not a bad read. It was just not as good as it could have been and I don’t intend to read it again in the future. I recommend the series for those that enjoy a steamy romance with a side of possibly excessive drama. Those that like Fifty Shades of Grey may also enjoy it since Landon and Aurora kind of have a dominant/submissive thing going on. I think the series is a good start for the author and I look forward to seeing more from her in the future.
As for my usual disclaimer, I wouldn’t recommend the series for any readers under the age of 18. There is drinking, cussing, smoking, and graphic sex scenes. Many body parts are described in crude terms.
******
The Rules Series
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Like Thimble's review? Post a comment saying so!
Although this isn't a book I'm interested in reading (due to the graphic sex . . . I'm over 18, but don't like to read it), your review is very well written!