Review: Portrait of a Crossroads by Kelly Rand

Book: Portrait of a Crossroads

Author: Kelly Rand

Published Date: May 18th, 2013

Publisher: Riptide Publishing

Genre: LGBT/Romance/Short Story

Standalone

Book Link: Goodreads

Purchase Links: Amazon

Synopsis: 

Since the day Annette found her father's body at the bottom of the stairs she has been going through the motions in life.She remembers the days where she had ambition but she just can't remember what they were. Her brothers are no help as they have never had any sort of ambition.

Then she meets Sadie. Sadie has everything that Annette is missing.She's a newly single, tattooed artist.Something about her wakes Annette up. Whether its the way she captures people on the canvass or simply the kindness she shows Annette,Annette doesn't know.

When Annette begins doing odd jobs for Sadie such as cleaning brushes and spending lazy days together in conversation,things slowly develop from a burgeoning friendship into something more. This also allows Annette to realize her own ambitions once again.

Disclaimer: I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

Review:

This book was an easy read, albeit sometimes tedious. The beginning was quite slow and too much time was spent on the friendship and not enough time on the romance that developed from that.I think I would have liked this book much better if things weren't so cramped together. The end felt rushed and that drove me bananas.

Another issue I had was that I didn't understand what attracted Sadie to Annette. It was shown why Annette was attracted to Sadie but not the other way around. I worried that for Sadie,this was a rebound relationship as she had just become single again after an extended relationship with another woman.

I was hoping that we'd get a little glimpse into when Annette realized she was interested in women as it was clear that this was a new thing for her. I worried that Annette was just tired of being single and was simply settling for whoever wanted her. I do not believe in settling so this bugged me quite a bit.

This really should get 2 stars but I'm bumping it up because the sex scene was easily the best part of the book.It was everything a reader would want from a sex scene. It was hot and totally believable unlike certain other sex scenes that have made me want to rip my hair out.So this short story gets 3 stars. I didn't hate it but I didn't love it either.