ARC Review: Blue Lines (Assassins #4) by Toni Aleo

The blurb as seen on Goodreads:

Release Date: December 10, 2013
Publisher: Loveswept
384 Pages

Opposites do more than just attract in Toni Aleo’s latest Nashville Assassins novel about a very bad boy and the good girl he can’t resist.

The instant Piper Allen sees Erik Titov, she wants him—wants his rock-hard body, sure, but the strength and mystery that lie behind that superstar hockey jock demeanor, too. So when he sidles up to her at a bar and slinks his arm around her waist, she’s lost. What follows is the wildest night of her life . . . followed by inevitable heartbreak the next morning. And then, a few weeks later, a very big surprise: two blue lines on a pregnancy test.

Only a check to the head could make Erik fall for a nice girl like Piper. But since their crazy-sexy night together, he’s been trying to forget about her alluring body by falling into bed with every woman in Nashville, and it’s not working. So when Piper shows up at his house with a baby-bomb to drop, it doesn’t take much for Erik to suggest the nuclear option: marriage. While it’s supposed to be all for show, the second they say “I do,” the ice between them starts to melt into sizzling steam.

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This book went through four stages:

1) Erik is a manwhore, and rags on Piper for ruining his life by getting pregnant.

2) Erik wants to keep sleeping with every woman he can, but is like, "Piper, let's get married for a few months and then get divorced after the baby is born so it at least looks like I tried."

3) Erik thinks he loves Piper, but he isn't sure because he still wants to sleep with other women.

4) Erik is completely in love with Piper and is so sure of himself and blah blah blah.

This book was repetitive, ridiculous, typical and utterly infuriating. I had high hopes for this series, because hockey players are crazy sexy and I wanted to read a series that displayed that. Blue Lines was a horrible way to begin. This book did nothing but frustrate me to the point of tears. I'm actually quite appalled by some of the content of this novel. I have so many gripes about Blue Lines. I spent almost thirty minutes on the phone with my best friend complaining about the lack of class this novel has.

Piper had a fling with über playboy, Erik Titov, six months ago and is now extremely pregnant. After the fallout where he broke her heart, she's kept her pregnancy hidden, for the most part, from friends and family. Erik Titov is a ladies man. He sleeps with anyone he wants, and isn't ashamed of it, but his manager is tired of him and has decided to put him on probation until he can get his act together. When Piper comes to him with the news of their future child, he decides to use that to trick the world into thinking he's changed so he can be back on top. A few months of married life, and he'll be back where he wanted to be in the rink and with the ladies. Too bad life has a way of mucking up your plans...

I'm not used to hating the male love interest in a story, but I really, really hate Erik. He's a sexist (he thinks, and I quote, "He had banged plenty of females…" e-ARC 65%, Location 3336--he says females in a derogatory manner and he says it very often). He's cruel to Piper in ways that would have me filing divorce papers, and asking for full custody. He repeatedly questions the paternity of their child, and then tells Piper that she ruined his life because he couldn't wrap it up. The entire book is him going back and forth on whether he wants to be with Piper, whether he should be with Piper. He doesn't listen to her opinions ever. He bosses her around constantly. What's worse though is that SHE LETS HIM. He also thinks about having sex with other women all the time. In fact, when coming up with the details for their marriage, he even asks himself if he can go for several months without sex. REALLY? I usually like "alpha males," but Erik went above and beyond in a way that I could not get on board with. I'm still really, really angry about the whole thing. He and Piper deserve each other. She has absolutely no backbone. She lets him walk all over her, until she finds out he loves her and then opens her arms and lets him in again. The only minor characters that I liked were Reese, Piper's twin, and Erik's parents. I could bother myself to care about anyone else; I was too busy trying to hold back the steam from making its way out of my ear due to the idiocy of the main characters.

The plot was the same issues repeated over and over again. Erik: Should I stay, or should I leave her? Piper: Stay! Erik: But I'm going to hurt you because of my past. And I want to sleep with all the vaginas. Piper: Stay! I love you. Erik: (insert something insulting and degrading towards Piper). Rinse and repeat. It got old very quickly. Erik never seemed to grow up, and by the end, he hadn't redeemed himself in my eyes. His "change" occurred almost over night and was too good to be true. The pacing is the only thing this story had going for it. I liked the length, and the way the author paced the story. Also--I think pregnancy is great, but EVERYONE in this book is pregnant. EVERYONE. It annoyed me to no end. It didn't feel realistic in the least.

Here's the other thing: I don't like to read sex scenes unless it's the couple in which I am reading about. I understand that it's common for people to have sex with other partners before finding the one they want to be with, but I don't like to read about it. So that scene lost some points from me as well.

Will I continue this series? No. I don't like the way this author writes her male love interests. I get that this is fiction, but Erik's behavior made me sick to my stomach. There is a difference between a wounded puppy, and someone that treats you like absolute crap and never really proves that he changed. I also can't, in good faith, recommend this book. I wish I had loved this, as I usually am a fan of romances that involve pregnancy, but this just rubbed me the wrong way.

I received an e-copy of this novel from the publisher for my honest opinion and review via Netgalley.