If I were your Woman

Tinsel Town is about to learn a few lessons from a Southern doctor with the courage to win the heart of a man who swore no woman ever would.

If it doesn’t have a scientific basis, Dr. Laney Olivia Houston doesn’t believe in it and that includes love at first sight. One encounter is all takes with Raphael Baptiste for her to realize her life is changed forever.

Jazz musician, Raphael Baptiste is no stranger to women or their beds. When an illness strikes, his life is thrown into turmoil. Can a quiet Southern belle look beyond his past and capture his heart?

REVIEW: I liked this story, it had great characters. The plot line was different from what I have read in the past.

I liked Laney, she has over come a lot in her life. She is half black, half white, has an iq off the charts and a physical handicap, the death of both her parents, among other things. All of this makes her a very strong woman. So when she finally gives into her attraction for the grandson of her grandfather’s girlfriend it is with everything in her.

Raphael has everything that a man could want, women whenever he wants them, a career that he loves, and all the money that he could want. What he never thought to encounter was a woman like Laney. When he finally gives in to his attraction for her he knows that something is different.

This is one of those romance stories where you know from the beginning who the bad guy is and it isn’t a bad guy like we would normally think, this bad guy is cancer. As the wife of a cancer survivor, this one hit a little close to home for me. The characters have known each other for a about a year, so there is none of the first getting to you know stuff, and we get to jump straight into the story. There is some background info about the two that is brought up, however it is written into the story beautifully.

I loved this story and read it in a couple of hours, because I couldn’t put it down. There was only one thing that I didn’t like about this book, that was the language, I don’t mean swearing but rather the way the men in the book talk to each other. I have read a lot of books where the main characters were black, and were educated like the men in this book were, and they never talked like these men did. What bugged the crap out of me and took me out of the story was the way that Raphael talked with his brothers, these are are highly educated men, and they talked like they were in the hood, at least to me. I have been around professional men, that are black and they never once talked like these men did. It really bugged me and took away from the story in my opinion.

Also there was the constant calling of one of his friends “mon frère”  which means my brother in french that I really didn’t get, neither one of them were french, nor could I tell were even from New Orleans where I would have understood using a form of that phrase. Yes I know that most people wouldn’t have been bugged by this, but hey in my other life I am a language teacher, and french is one of those languages.

Other than the language thing I really enjoyed the book and will read this author again, only next time I will skip over those words and pretend that they aren’t there if she does it again.

I really liked that the characters were black, because I have always found black men sexy, hello can say Tyrese Gibson yummy, plus there is always Mikhail, in my opinion there is no handsomer black person (I have to say person as he is only 9) but hey I am his mother.

I was really glad to find a book that has the characters being of a different ethnicity, not that I think that makes any difference, if the characters are believable (and these are), and they are attracted to each other (they are), there is sufficient heat (there is), with a realistic story line (this one is), then that is all that matters.  

I give this book a 4.75 out of 5