I am not quite sure where to even start. First of all, i completely understand why this is a hate it or love it book. It seemed so unbalanced. A lot of things just didn't make sense to me. I thought long and hard and decided to just stay on neutral ground because i neither hated it nor loved it. Nora Flite is a good writer however. The plot had the potential to knock me on my ass, the follow through just fell through. I love that it never felt rushed. Everything happened at a steady pace that allowed me to feel the story. I connected with Leo, i wish there was more from him. His history is what really grabs me. The fact that this was his life, this is how he was raised and he truly believed that what he was doing was for a greater cause. He wanted to save the poor girls he trained. However, it loses me when he thinks that his cruelty will better them. How can a girl be willingly happy with that? Celeste is another story entirely. I truly disliked her character. She is the main reason the story fell flat to me. Her inner monologues could have been omitted. There was never any fight in her. How do you submit to a person who kidnapped you the moment you wake up just because you are attracted to him. Give it a break. There was never a moment where she said no and meant it! Where is the truly distress captive. Maybe I'm used to the darker books where the captive truly hates her captor until the very end when he is all she has left. When he has broken her in so many pieces that the only way she could function was for him to glue her back together with pieces of him. Thats what i want!OAN: NATURAL BLONDES ARE BLONDE ALL OVER!!!!! These are basic things that overlooked. She shaved in front of him!!!! Not to mention that when he first said that the buyer wanted a blonde, why didn't she bust out her trump card???? Ugh, it was unnecessary to keep mentioning the blonde hair if it never created the big blow up everyone expected. 4 Star Review by Jen SkewesI have had this book on my Ipad for a while before I finally decided to read it. I loved Nora Flite’s Body Rock series. I loved her writing and when I first read the synopsis for Only Pretend I was intrigued, but at the same time a little scared to read it. This storyline is something that is completely out of my comfort zone. I have read books that deal with some of dark issues that are in this book but never when they involved the hero of the story. So many times I went to read it and then chickened out. But I finally put on my big girl panties and went for it. And I am glad that I did.I do not want to give too much away. I thnk the blurb says it all. Celeste was dumped by her boyfriend, because she is for the most part boring. She has no where to go, no family, no other friends. So what does she do? Puts on a sexy dress and heads to Vegas. Little did she know that going to Vegas would change her world in ways that she never expected. She went from talking to some sexy man one night in Vegas to waking up in a foreign place. She has no idea were she is or why she was brought there. The only thing she knows is that it has to do with the man she met the night before, Leonide. The beginning of this story was a little hard for me to take at first. Leonide was a monster. As the story goes on you see bit by bit that while Leonide is a complete monster on the outside that maybe somewhere deep down he actually has feelings and cares. See for Leonide this life is all he knows. This is how he grew up and he doesn't see what he is doing as being wrong. It is his job to help women out that are in desperate need of a new life. He “trains” these women to prepare them for their future. He truly believes he is doing a good thing for them and the truth is that for most of "his girls" maybe he is. Maybe he has helped them in ways that no one else has. But Celeste is a totally different ball game. She is unlike the others is so many ways. At times she was strong and then at times she became week to Leonide. But I think overall she fought for the one thing she hoped to get again, her freedom. Leonide was a monster but Celeste changed him. She made him feel, she made him see things in a different way. And while he dug deep down to find those feelings I think their may be a part of him that will always be a bit of a monster. This story is dark at times but to be honest it wasn’t anything that I couldn’t handle or had to step away from. I really enjoyed this book. I can’t say that I loved Leonide simply because of some of his ways. But I did like him and those moments that you can see that he cares even if he would never admit to it, is what made me like him. I am glad that I gave this one a chance. ARC received in exchange for an honest review
