ANY WAY YOU WANT IT

View other editions of ANY WAY YOU WANT IT.
View books by Kathy Love.

Rather slim plot but reasonable read - Rated
In a lot of ways this book was reminiscent of Dark Melody by Christine Feehan: a musician singing in a band at a bar stumbles across a woman with whom he falls instantly in love but the woman has some troubled history with men which has left her unsure of herself so the hero does his best to build her up. Of course there are also differences between the books; in this story the hero, Ren Anthony, is a vampire who believes he is cursed so that any woman who falls in love with him will die, thus he avoids any kind of deep relationship with a woman; the heroine, Maggie, is recovering from being jilted on her wedding day by her fiancé Peter and has made a wish for a fling whilst on holiday in New Orleans.

The first third of the book shows Maggie and her friends visiting New Orleans and finding themselves in a bar opposite their hotel where Ren and his band, The Impalers, are performing. Ren and Maggie are attracted to each other but are very different people and so Maggie's desire for a Wild Fling seems rather out of her reach because of her history with Peter and her lack of self confidence. Fortunately for Maggie and for the plot, slim as it is, she gets over this by page 100 and most of the next hundred pages are Maggie and Ren having sex, with the final fifth of the book where Maggie works out what Ren is and has to overcome his fear of his curse.

There are other side characters in this book, most of whom don't have too much of a part to play apart from Ren's half-brother Vittorio, who will probably appear in a future book. The main action is always between Ren and Maggie in a 'fated lovers' kind of way with the plot enhanced slightly as they both bring a certain amount of healing to each others' wounds.

This was a reasonable read but it lacked depth and the 'big misunderstanding' idea, that Ren can't allow anyone to love him because he's cursed, seemed rather too facilely removed - either that, or Ren was remarkably dense to have misunderstood the nature of the curse. The vampiric part of Ren's nature was very understated (no bloodsucking here), it was his longevity which added more interest to the story because of part of his history with which Maggie is familiar.

The New Orleans setting added a little extra to this book which was readable but ultimately forgettable.