RITA Reader Challenge Review

Once Kissed by Cecy Robson

This RITA® Reader Challenge 2016 review was written by Kera. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Long Contemporary category.

The summary:

Once they shared a night of passion. Now a chance encounter forces them back together. In Cecy Robson’s O’Brien Family series debut—perfect for readers of Monica Murphy and J. Lynn—two total opposites find that the flames of desire are still smoldering.

Tough-as-steel cop Curran O’Brien is quickly rising through the ranks of the Philadelphia police department. But when his rookie partner is almost killed under his watch, Curran just wants to prove he still has what it takes to walk among Philly’s finest. So he’s pissed to be stuck on a cushy security assignment for the DA’s office . . . until he gets a good look at the sweet, straitlaced intern he’s supposed to protect—but not touch.

Tess Newart recognizes Curran instantly. How could she not? Back in college she tied this former frat boy to the bed with her argyle socks! That sizzling one-night stand was the only indiscretion Tess ever allowed herself. She has survived law school so far, despite being pushed to succeed by her overbearing father. Now that she’s interning on a major case against a ruthless crime boss, she won’t jeopardize her career by giving in to temptation again. She just never expected temptation to look so damn hot in uniform.

Tess knows her father has other plans for her, and they don’t include Curran. But soon she’s falling for him all over again. And when danger emerges, Curran will prove just how good a bad-boy cop can be.

Here is Kera's review:

I jumped at this book with grabby hands because of this sentence in the summary:

Back in college she tied this former frat boy to the bed with her argyle socks!

I mean, male bondage! Argyle socks! It’s an irresistibly charming and random combination. How could this not be fun?

Unfortunately, what I got was a cliché-laden good girl-bad boy romance that is drowning in sexism. (As well as several other – isms, but let’s deal with these one at a time.)

Tess is one semester away from finishing law school and currently interning at the DA’s office, where she’s assigned to assist on a big case. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and her peers bully her amidst speculations of nepotism. Assistant District Attorney Declan O’Brien is in charge of said case, and because there is a possibility of danger, his brother, Curran, is assigned to be part of Tess’ protective detail.

Tess and Curran went to the same university and had a one-night-stand. Unfortunately, Tess’ father walked in on them the next morning and promptly sent her off to a woman’s college for the remainder of her undergrad studies. I’m not spoiling anything when I tell you that Tess’ father is controlling and abusive, because we find that out very early on.

What we also find out early on is that our heroine is the very sheltered, insecure and emotionally fragile kind, who calls the hero a cad and a scoundrel, wants to stomp her feet when she is angry and can’t have a single conversation without blushing for one reason or another. By contrast, our hero is the standard perpetual frat boy who never grew up and thinks that it’s hilarious, after Tess asks him not to tell anyone that they know each other because her colleagues are already making her life hell, to promise her very sincerely to keep their previous acquaintance to himself only to shout after her whether or not he can still tell anyone about the crazy sex they had? (The fact that the stairwell they are in at the time happens to be empty is a lucky coincidence and does not make this okay. They are at her place of work.)

If you like this relationship dynamic, then you will most likely enjoy this book. I do not, and it very much affected my reading experience. I had a really hard time connecting to either protagonist, and if I hadn’t signed up to write a review about this book, I would’ve quit reading it much earlier.

My main problem, however, was not just the characterization but the gender politics. I started highlighting sentences that bugged me by the time I reached chapter two, only to stop several chapters later because I was highlighting passages on every other page.

For example:

Tess is very self-conscious about her weight. She used to have an eating disorder in college, and when she expresses her insecurities in that area, Curran’s response is:

“… Men, real men, like curves, not fucking angles.”

As a curvy woman, I appreciate the sentiment, but I have several problems with the sentence. For one thing, some men do like angles. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Different people are attracted to people of different shapes and sizes. Also, can we please validate different body shapes without shaming thin women? Or even better, could we validate different body shapes without making that validation dependent on other peoples’ opinion, full stop? Because that would be awesome. Also, there is the ongoing issue of “real men.” Now, compared to some of the other stuff that is happening in this story, this is a small thing. And if it had been the only instance in an otherwise entertaining book, I would’ve just moved past it. But things like this come up constantly. And they pile up.

At one point, prompted by Curran’s comment about a female police officer who will be part of Tess’ protection detail, he and Tess talk about sexual harassment in male-dominated work places. Curran tries to derail the conversation twice, once with: “Believe it or not, but not every guy out there is misogynistic[,]” and the second time by flatly refusing to believe her. He then explains to her that the officer in question was one of the instructors at the police academy, and that the reason some of his colleagues hate her is that it was her job to push the recruits to their breaking point. Which would be understandable, except:

“…even though the other two male trainers present where the ones who devised our punishment, she was the one we were all pissed at. So yeah, we are a bunch of chauvinistic pricks.”

So, to sum up: he derails twice, and then admits that Tess was right but excuses it with “boys will be boys.”

I would accept this storyline as part of a character arc, but given that the heroine’s reaction to this is half a second of outrage followed by admiration for his backside as he walks away, I have little hope of that being the case.

There’s also a scene where they discuss the “crazy sex” they had, and Curran expresses his relief that Tess was not a virgin. Asking for clarification, Tess is met with this explanation:

“What I mean is, someone like you deserved a different experience if it was your first time.”

“When you say ‘someone like me,’ what do you mean exactly?”

“I mean a nice girl. You’re a nice girl, Tess. Just like you were then.”

So… pray tell, how exactly do girls, who do not fit into your incredibly narrow-minded definition of a “nice girl” deserve to experience their first time? I am ever so curious. And that’s aside from the fact that Tess enjoyed herself, that Curran knows Tess enjoyed herself and that this should really be what matters most regardless of whether or not she had any prior sexual experience.

One thing this book does do well is that it shows that the protagonists are attracted to each other from the get go. And just a couple of days into the story we get our first make out scene. They kiss, they touch, they dry hump, and then Curran wrenches himself away and tells her that this was a mistake and that it can never happen again, because he cannot afford to get distracted. I was rolling my eyes at this point, because I have read this scene a thousand times and it has not become any less annoying since I came across it in the first book I picked up in this sub-genre. This attitude, by the way, lasts pretty much exactly twenty-four hours before they have oral sex. Two minutes after that, on his way to the car, Curran calls her on the phone and tells her… you guessed it: This was a big mistake, and it can never happen again, because he cannot afford to get distracted. Le sigh.

I’m going to quote the first part of that phone call because it highlights another couple of things that rubbed me the wrong way.

“Hello?” I answer, my tongue clipped.

“I take it it wasn’t as good for you as it was for me?” Current asked on the other end.

My skin prickles with heat. “Sorry I thought you were someone else.”

He pauses. “Another guy?”

For one, there is the constant jealousy that Curran exhibits towards any man who comes close to Tess. This includes, but is not limited to, his own brother.

Tess focuses fully on Declan, like I’m not even here. Something she’s done a lot lately, and something that really pisses me off.

Just to make it clear, Tess is working with Declan on an important case. She is supposed to be focused on him and her work with him. By contrast, Curran is supposed to act as a bodyguard, which means he should be too busy checking the environment for threats to even notice whether or not Tess is paying attention to him.

The second issue is Curran’s constant need for reassurance. When Tess tells him about another boyfriend, Howard, Curran immediately wants to know whether or not Howard was good in bed. (Of course, he wasn’t. Because God forbid a romance novel heroine ever enjoyed sex with anyone other than the hero.)

Curran’s inner monologue to her response:

“… thanks for the favor, Howie, ’cause you made me look that much better.”

Yes, you are great in bed, in comparison to the guy who was just “adequate.” High aspirations, these are not.

And then, there is this:

At some point they are actually going to have P in V sex, and Tess stops him half-way through.

“You don’t want me?” He gasps.

“Do you have protection?”

“It’s okay. I swear, I’m clean[,]”

Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

The thing is, this guy is all bluster and cocky arrogance, but he has no actual confidence. This is not attractive.

This is pretty much the point where I stopped reading and started skimming. There is a scene at a coffee shop in which Curran insults his brother, Declan (not for the first time) by claiming that he has a small penis, which is followed by this exchange:

“My dick is bigger than yours, and you goddamn know it.”

“Pick a woman here. Anyone between the ages of twenty-two and forty-two, without a ring.”

“Why?”

“I want you to watch me pick her up. By tomorrow night at the latest, her legs will be locked like a vice around my hips and she’ll be calling to God, Jesus, and anywhere from three to four disciples.”

So Curran picks a woman (Who is naturally neither unattractive nor on the upper end of Declan’s age limitation. But, you see, she has curves! And Declan likes angles! Just more proof that he is not a “real man.”) who is supposed to be a challenge, except he changes his mind about that as soon as Declan makes his approach.

I chuckle when she crosses her legs and turns the page of her book just as he reaches her. Declan’s right; this girl won’t be a challenge. She seems lonely, defenseless even. Yeah. Glad we didn’t make a bet. This girl’s going down. Probably on my brother.

To everyone’s surprise, the woman in question ignores Declan’s attempts to compliment her looks. (I am cheering for her, because aside from the objectification, he’s blatantly lying to her anyway, as he made it very clear that he did not think her attractive.) After strike number three, he sits down opposite her with this line:

“Come on, you’re not deaf, are you? I’m trying to tell you you’re beautiful.”

I ask you, how could anyone resist this man?

As it turns out, she actually is hearing impaired, which makes Declan feel awful. Just awful, I tell you. She is understandably angry, and Declan slinks back to his brother after she gives him a piece of her mind. Curran admonishes Declan that he should’ve been more sensitive. I am waiting for irony to strike him hard enough to topple him right out of his chair. But alas, he is protected by the shield of the truly oblivious.

Declan still feels awful about all the wrong things, and Curran tries to reassure him.

“Look. The important thing is you didn’t mean it.”

No. That is not the important thing. That is the bare minimum. The important thing is that neither one of you, ever, even for one second, looked at this woman and saw a person. She was just a thing to you. A challenge. A conquest. A means to prove that you are a smooth operator. Her feelings did not matter to you. You approached her, lying through your teeth from the very first sentence you uttered, with every intention to bang her and then drop her the next day without any regard as to how she would feel about this. There’s nothing wrong with one-night-stands. They are fun. But be upfront about it. Don’t fucking lie you way into someone’s pants just to prove a point. Sheesh.

Between this scene and the next, there’s also the circular logic of both Declan and Curran dating women they disrespect, so… they can disrespect them. This is evidenced by Declan specifically baiting women with his status as an assistant DA even though he thinks of them as gold-diggers who are only interested in him because of that status. As for Curran,… well read on.

Tess and Curran go to a bar where she is introduced to his friends and assorted cousins. It is the scene after which I threw in the towel, after I almost threw my tablet against the wall.

First off, we’re continuing the theme of “real men” when one of the characters breaks up with her boyfriend because:

“She said he was crying over some movie they went to see. She couldn’t take it. She said she needs someone with balls. Big ones.”

and:

“Sorry, I don’t date men with small dicks.”

I am moved to ask (having only ever lived in the US for a year) is Philly known for a male population equipped with smaller than average genitalia? Is there something in the water? Are there any studies of the scientific persuasion one might peruse? Why are all these characters so bloody obsessed with the size of a man’s junk? There are several instances where this happens as well as a few times where showing weakness is equated with “being a pussy.”

However, getting back to the scene that broke the camel’s back, so to speak. Tess is introduced to Curran’s friends. Curran then walks off to get drinks, leaving her alone to deal with their surprise that Curran brought a girlfriend to their night out. Because, you see, Curran does not usually bring any women with him. Except… all the women he apparently did bring with him, who were all, without exception, “Psycho, money-grubbing, evil.”

In addition to this they were also either manicurists or masseuses, and his friends are positively agog when Tess says that she is neither of those. However, when she tells them that she is currently not employed, the world suddenly makes sense again.

“Ahh I get it,” Finn says. “You’re on welfare. Tough break, kid.”

WTF?

Tess quickly clarifies that she is a law student and working in an unpaid internship, which is met with stupefied disbelief. They cannot understand that Curran would be with someone of her caliber (meaning a person with a university education). They ask her again if she is sure that she doesn’t do nails, before demanding that she prove her intelligence by answering a stupid math question. Of course, she gets the question right. To which their response basically boils down to: Is that right? It can’t be right. It sounds right. Oh, how about we look it up on our phones?

I cannot. I just… face palm.

I take it, I’m not supposed to wonder about their level of education.

But it gets worse.

“You see, Curran usually dates outside his race. He’s a white Caucasian male, and his women are typically demon spawn from the planet slut.”

This is followed by several examples of how these women acted out after he dumped them. And I get the impression that I’m supposed to wonder why an amazing guy like Curran ended up with all these unpleasant ex-girlfriends before he met the very special snowflake that is our heroine, but what I really want to know is just how badly this asshole treated the women he hooked up with to make them this angry? Also, there is some really icky classism going on here, and I officially do not like any of these characters.

Tess is a bewildered and slightly worried by this account, but reassures everyone that Curran is nice to her, which is Curran’s cue to reappear just as one of his friends ends the chapter with this line:

“[Tess is] Not like that bitchy girl who tied you up in college…”

Ah, yes. So much for her being a “nice girl.”

I realize that this review has turned into a bit of a rant, but I would like to close it on a positive note, and tell you about something that I did like. Throughout the parts of the book that I read the relationship between Tess and her father is very well explained. He groomed her to be this perfect little doll and basically tries to control every aspect of her life. It could have been very difficult to understand how he can exert this control over someone in their mid-twenties who is living on her own, if the novel did not make an effort to explain the dynamics of abuse, and make it clear that one of the biggest hurdles to overcome before someone can leave an abusive relationship is that the victim needs to realize that there actually is a way out. That they can leave. Tess has made a plan, and she is sticking to it. It might not be an option that would work for other people in this situation, but it is one that works for her. And that is what matters. And while I could not have cared less about the romance in this book, what kept me reading was my desire to find out how the relationship with her father would be resolved. In the end, I do think it is a shame that the gender and character issues killed my interests in this particular plot line as well.

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Once Kissed by Cecy Robson

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  1. This was a terrific review! Thanks so much. I am going to avoid this book like the plague.

  2. Marie says:

    I’d like to give Kera an A+ for this review. It’s mostly ranting, yes, but she gives excellent examples from the book to support her statements. Great job, Kera!

  3. kitkat9000 says:

    My Kindle thanks you for the heads up. I’ll definitely avoid this train wreck.

    And here’s yet another RITA award finalist I won’t be reading. Seriously, I will never again consider anything touted as a RITA winner or finalist worthwhile based solely on that descriptor. If anything, at this point, that’s more of a hindrance than help and I will act accordingly. There are far too many good books out there to waste my time on dreck such as this.

  4. It sounds like it was written by an MRA.

    Not to mention the jaw-dropping racism implied by stating that “Curran usually dates outside his race. He’s a white Caucasian male, and his women are typically demon spawn from the planet slut.” So women who aren’t white are “demon spawn from the planet slut”?

    *head explodes*

    *head reforms, like a sponge*

    How did this get past an editor?

  5. Taffygrrl says:

    This review is FANTASTIC. You’re so good at pointing out all the issues with the characterization in a very specific way. You’re hilarious in it, but also insightful. Thank you for writing this!

  6. Becky says:

    OMG,I almost lost it right there. Great review! Thanks so much for taking one for the team 🙂

  7. Becky says:

    …and obviously I am HTML-challenged. I meant to have this quote in there:

    I am waiting for irony to strike him hard enough to topple him right out of his chair. But alas, he is protected by the shield of the truly oblivious.

    Sorry! I’ll figure it out one of these days…

  8. Linda says:

    Thank you so much for this lovely breakdown of the misogyny in that book… sometimes it makes me really sad when authors have internalized that sort of thing.

    That said… this review also made me realize that I don’t think I will ever read a police officer romance ever again. There’s just too much ugliness now I think for me to read a romance w/ out panicking. Maybe in years if things change, but it seems like they will not. Okay sorry that got dark.

  9. Linda says:

    > In addition to this they were also either manicurists or masseuses

    > “You see, Curran usually dates outside his race. He’s a white Caucasian male, and his women are typically demon spawn from the planet slut.”

    I see this dog whistle. People seem to never fail to be disgusting when it comes to asian women and relationships. This is nothing compared to what I’ve heard in real life, but then, this was also read by an editor and published.

  10. Anne says:

    Le sigh.

    So how does stuff this sexist get nominated for awards anyway? Clearly someone out there thought these were acceptable characters….

  11. Mara says:

    THIS!!!:”Different people are attracted to people of different shapes and sizes. Also, can we please validate different body shapes without shaming thin women? Or even better, could we validate different body shapes without making that validation dependent on other peoples’ opinion, full stop? Because that would be awesome.”
    Preach, sister. I’m thankful we’re slowly moving as a society towards more body positivity, but I’ll be very glad when we get rid of the “one up, one down” mentality of empowerment. I’m a curvy girl and love it, but I don’t need less curvy women to feel bad about their bodies for me to feel good about mine, and I can only hope that sentiment flows both ways. Thanks for calling this out in a book- I see it a lot in books where the heroine is bigger, and it’s as patronizing as fat shaming, IMO.

  12. Serena says:

    Wow, that’s… wow. That sounds awful.

  13. Andrea D says:

    I’m cringing at that description of the brother harassing the woman. I have a foreboding feeling that the author must be setting them up for a sequel. And what is with the unpaid internship at the DA office? I really question whether the position would satisfy laws re. unpaid internships. Especially if she is “assisting” on a major case.

    Thanks for the review. Definitely a pass for me.

  14. Kmblue says:

    Why did she have to set this hot ass mess of a story in my city??

    This review has convinced me not to try her books at all.

  15. Megan M. says:

    This book would have left me in a rage as well. Truly awful. Wow.

  16. HollyS says:

    The author lost me at “I’m clean”. Ugh is this 1987???

    Thanks for the really good review.

  17. Sharon says:

    I started side-eyeing this book the second I realized it was NA. I have not had any luck with NA books, so many of them seem to produce the same alpha-hole protagonist, and if he isn’t straight-up alpha-hole, he’s an over-protective stalker who doesn’t think the heroine can tie her own shoes, let alone think for herself.

  18. As a skinny Asian woman, I found the quotes disgusting. Thanks for the warning-review.

  19. The Other Kate says:

    The terribleness of the quotes in here is unbelievable. How the heck do books like this get nominated?

    It’s extra weird because it looks like the author took her names from Ilona Andrews. Curran and Declan are both Andrews heroes, and those versions are much better!

  20. flchen1 says:

    Kera, thank you for the well considered, well written review. So much here to make me cringe. I’m adding this to my “avoid-like-the-plague” list.

  21. Emily says:

    Great Review! I laughed a lot particularly the part about everyone in Philly knows about all men’s junk.
    As for the “dates outside of his race” and “white Caucasian male”, somebody above said it’s a dog whistle and with no disrespect meant to them, I’m going to quote Trevor Noah talking about Trump. “You think it’s a dog whistle, but it’s not a dog whistle; it’s just a regular whistle. We can all hear it and it’s racist as shit.”

  22. Demi says:

    Awesome review. Looks like my experience with Cecy’s other nominated book – Once Pure – was actually more positive, even though I had a ton of problems with it. How did this series of books get nominated for not one, but two RITA’s?

  23. Elvina says:

    Fantastic review. Thank you!

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