Cheater - Book Review

By Rachel Van Dyken

Synopsis

Lucas Thorn wasn’t born a cheater. All it took was a single moment—say, a certain disastrous incident on the night before his wedding—and boom. Reputation destroyed forever and always. So now he owns it. He has a lady friend for every night of the week (except Sundays—God’s day and all), and his rules are simple: No commitments. No exceptions.

But a certain smart-mouthed, strawberry blonde vixen is about to blow that all to hell.

Avery Black has never forgiven Lucas for cheating on her sister. And suddenly being forced to work with him is pretty much a nightmare on steroids. Of course, it does afford her the opportunity to make his life as difficult as possible. But no good revenge scheme comes without payback. Because he didn’t become the Lucas Thorn without learning a few things about women.

Now Avery’s lust for vengeance has turned into, well, lust. And if Lucas stops cheating, it’s definitely not because he’s falling in love…

Review

I have mixed feelings about CHEATER, which is why I’m ultimately giving it 3❤️. It held my attention and had me laughing at some scenes, but was it occasionally a little too silly? Yes. Were some of the scenes—and character behavior—unrealistic and over-the-top? Most definitely. Does it have a high school vibe to it, even though Lucas is 32 years old? Yep. But if you can put all that aside, you will find it to be an enjoyable read.

That being said, here are the main issues I had with the story.

1 – Some of the characters thoughts and conversations were quite repetitive and were almost repeated word for word in some cases. There were also several inconsistencies throughout the entire story that were so blatant I had to wonder how they were missed by everyone who had a hand in getting the book ready for publishing.

2 – Lucas is not a cheater. Does he have seven women he regularly has sex with on an almost daily basis? Yes. But he’s honest with all of his partners that their relationship is purely sexual, they’re all aware of the other women and they fully understand the situation, so I don’t classify what he does as cheating. Oh, and spoiler alert, he didn’t cheat on his fiancé either. So when I say that Lucas is not a cheater, I mean he’s truly not a cheater.

3 – I haven’t read them all, but from the reviews I have read, a lot of people have taken issue with Lucas being a manwhore. But no-one seems to blink an eye about the truly disturbing part of the story: that when Lucas was 27 years old, he lusted after and planned on seducing Avery…who was just 17 years old and still in high school. I won’t lie, that made my skin crawl.

I know it sounds like more bad than good, but I didn’t hate this story. As I said at the beginning, it held my attention and it made me laugh, so it wasn’t all bad. CHEATER comes with a happy ending for Lucas and Avery, but the ending mainly sets up the reader for the next book in the series, which is about their best friends, Thatch and Austin. Will I read their story? I’m honestly not sure at this stage.