Sunshine and the Stalker by Dani Rene and K. Webster

​NEW ADULT ROMANCE

Publication date:06/09/2018
Kindle Unlimited: Yes
Cliffhanger: No

For reasons I’d rather not examine too closely, I love a story about a dark, twisty, stalker-y guy who becomes obsessed with someone, then falls in love and learns to become a somewhat normal person. You know, like Sebastian in The Bad Guy. That was a guy who did some effed-up things in the name of “love”, but slowly learned what it really meant to put someone else’s feelings ahead of his own. By the end of that book, Sebastian was prime, grade-A book boyfriend material. But sadly, James, the “hero” in this book, is no Sebastian.

James is a 40-something rich dude who has decided that traditional dating is boring, so he “hunts” women. He stalks them, learns about them, uses that info to entice them into having sex with him, then dumps them and moves on to his next target. He’s stalking Cerys’s (the heroine’s) step-mother when Cerys mouths off to him and captures his attention. He’s immediately smitten with 18-year-old Cerys.

Now, I probably could’ve gotten over the fact that James is old enough to be Cerys’s father, and that James clearly has mental health issues if these two characters had gotten to know each other and Cerys started teaching James what it meant to be somewhat normal/to love someone. But that’s soooo not what happened. Here’s what did happen after the anti-meet-cute:

1. James pays off a doorman to find Cerys.
2. Cerys, who knows nothing about James other than the fact that he’s a clearly deranged stalker, lets him into her home when she’s alone.
3. They have sex. Lots and lots of sex. Cerys was a virgin, of course. At this point in the story I’m not sure if I’m more offended by the fact that Cerys lets a strange man into her home while she’s alone, or by the fact that she’s willing to hand her virginity over to a strange man who she knows to be a stalker. Clearly Cerys isn’t too bright, and I have ZERO tolerance for TSTL heroines.
4. Cerys obviously has a magical vagina, because after having sex with her, James realizes he loves her. I like instalove and magical vaginas about as much as I like TSTL heroines, sadly.
5. They live happily ever after. I’m sure the story of how daddy met mommy after stalking grandma will entertain their children and grandchildren for generations. Sigh.

Long-story-short, I’m going to make a bold statement and say this was the worst piece of crap I’ve read in a long, long time. The fact that I finished reading it doesn’t make it any better than any of the books I’ve marked as DNF lately. This one was just so terrible that I kept reading, thinking it couldn’t possibly get any worse. Then it did. Over and over again. It’d be a toss-up if I had to choose who I hated more--Cerys or James. They both sucked big, hairy, sweaty balls, in my opinion. In other words, run for your lives, folks. Save yourselves. It’s too late for me...        

Does this book contribute to or help crush the romance stigma?
Stigma city. It’s the Charlie Sheen of romance. No rehab can help it.  

Other reading suggestions
Read The Bad Guy by Celia Aaron. Really, you’d be better off reading a lawn mower manual than this.

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