This book is a perfect example of the saying “be careful what you wish for,” because Maya Banks only wrote it because the rabid Colters’ fans were begging for another book to show us how all our favorite characters were getting along after we called wrap-up on their individual books. And unfortunately, Colters’ Promise shows us just how bloody boring and sappy a romance novel relationship gets once there’s no drama to keep life spicy.
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I always put my plot summaries inside a spoiler tag so as not to ruin anything for people who like to be surprised, but I’m feeling pretty freaking undercut with this book because there’s really nothing to spoil. Nothing happens in the story. There’s no over-arching plot. No meaty drama to get invested in. It’s just page after page after page of the entire Colter clan gushing to each other about how wonderful they all are and how much they adore each other. It was so gag-worthy that I think even the Hallmark channel would have turned it away.
It was also weirdly and annoyingly repetitive. Practically everyone refers to everyone else as “baby” throughout the book which really started to make me grind my teeth by the end. Two of the “couples” go through nearly identical moments where they question the nature of their relationship, so that was repetitive. A new-ish character gets introduced and then nothing really comes of it. There’s one part where the editor seems to have fallen asleep because it’s stated twice, in identical language in less than two pages that, to Max, the platinum cuffs on Callie’s wrists are more important than their wedding rings.
And, most bizarrely, there are also A LOT of references to thanking God for things, and God having a plan and whatnot, which seemed really odd to me. I mean, this is a freaking erotica series that specializes in polyamorous relationships with one BDSM for dessert. And all of these relationships began out of wedlock and one was even adulterous since the woman was technically married to someone else at the time. So bringing The Almighty into the discussion just seemed really out of place to me, and not what most readers of the series would be looking for. Heck, MB even made sure to put a manger into the Christmas decorations just to make sure everyone understood that we were, indeed, talking about the Christian God here, not some pagan deity with more flexible rules on sex for His or Her worshipers to follow. Really weird.
Here are the few plot points, such as they are:
1) Lily finds out that she’s pregnant, despite being on birth control. She’s scared because of her previous baby’s death (which she STILL has not gotten any therapy for, apparently…) and thus doesn’t tell her husbands right away. They notice her emotional distance from them and spend a lot of time worrying that she might be getting sick of having 3 gorgeous men worshiping her in every way and thus be thinking of dumping them. They sit her down to talk and she tells them about the bun in her oven and that she’s freaking out over it. Then she spends the rest of the book angsting about how she totally ruined the special moment of telling them they were going to be fathers for the first time. The guys all take turns telling her again and again that it won’t be like last time. She’ll have tons of support and everything will work out fine. Then she announces the blessed event at Christmas dinner and everyone there falls all over themselves saying the same thing. Fin.
2) Max’s sister calls to say she got beaten up by her boyfriend and is scared. Max goes to collect her and she spends the rest of the book living with Max and Callie and is welcomed by the Colter family as if she’s one of their own. Nothing else happens with her story.
3) Callie notices that Max hasn’t dominated her in the bedroom since he got back from collecting his sister so she kneels in front of him to ask for an explanation. She, just like Lily’s husbands, has jumped to the conclusion that Max MUST be sick of having his perfect little submissive wife obeying his every command and fulfilling his every desire, and be considering leaving her. Instead Max confesses that seeing his sister beaten up has made him question whether what he does to Callie in the bedroom is abuse. That he totally gets off on dominating and controlling her. On inflicting pain on her with paddles and riding crops. And that he has to be deliberately careful not to mark her in a place where other people might see it, because they’ll think he’s hurting her….which he is. Callie tells him he’s being an idiot, that it’s totally different because she consents. And that’s the end of it.
4) Holly comes down with appendicitis and we get about 4 pages of everyone worrying about her and then she’s fine again. Done.
5) Holly, tired of everyone dissing her cooking abilities, finally decides to have Lily teach her to cook so she can make Christmas dinner as a surprise for everyone. She makes it and it turns out fine. And that’s the final scene in the book.
And that’s it. That’s all the plot we’re given. The rest of the page count is filled up with endless talk about how wonderful and amazing they all are and how much they love each other. There isn’t even any sex to help things along. We get one scene between Lily and her husbands and that’s it. So yeah, this was all really weak.
All series books have little cameos of the characters from previous books to show you how they’re getting along, but usually those are just short little sound bites that exist on the periphery while your main focus is on the current book’s plot and characters. Colters’ Promise is nothing but those little sound bites and they’ve all been padded out and stretched and copy-pasted until they fill 200 pages. And it’s awful.
Seeing the characters I’d previously liked just mooning about through their day, thinking about how wonderful their life is and how much they all love each other, with nothing to challenge them in the plot, made me start to hate them all. It’s 200 pages of everyone acting like that one annoying couple in your friend group who sit at the table holding hands and arguing in baby-talk voices over which one of them is the cutest, while the rest of you are just trying to eat your dinner without gagging. When these characters were facing a worthy challenge together, their strong love for one another seemed positive and appropriate. But without that challenge to overcome it makes me want to hurl.
It’s the same reason why sports movies always make the heroes the ragtag underdogs with second-hand uniforms. You root for and get invested in them because they have to fight to triumph over something. When you replace those poor kids with a team full of extraordinarily wealthy ones with an entire fleet of personal trainers and the best equipment money can buy, suddenly you’re not invested in them anymore. Of course they’re going to win, they’ve got every advantage. And that’s how all the relationships in this book felt. With all the challenges and roadblocks and character arcs already done in previous books, I couldn’t get behind any of the made up non-problems this book tried to raise. Now instead of weeping, angsting and worrying with the characters I was thinking “Oh shut up already! You lead a completely charmed life. Get over yourself and count your blessings.”
I guess this all seems a little hysterical on my part but I just wish I hadn’t read this book. Instead of looking back fondly on these characters that I loved (or at least liked) in the previous books, now I’m left with the disappointing knowledge that they’d all be insufferable to be around for the rest of their lives. And that’s a real shame. (hide spoiler)]
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