The One by Lora Leigh

So I recently finished “The One” by Lora Leigh. I rented this book from my library on Overdrive. I will be honest that I just chose it due to the cover. It was a bust. Here is the story followed by criticism.

Brenna Laine is attending a party for Jase, her stepbrother. She watches as he dances with another pretty girl and begins telling us that every year when Jase dances with a pretty girl, he ends up sleeping with the pretty girl. Brenna has been in love with her stepbrother for a very long time and it pains her to watch that scene every year. Poppa Jason, her stepfather and Jase’s real dad, comes over to tell her that she needs to stake her claim with Jase and stop being dormant. She denies and decides to leave the party.

As she’s packing up her things to leave, Jase comes to her room to check on her. Poppa Jason tricked him into thinking that there was something wrong with Brenna. Something sparks in the air and they begin kissing. As their kissing, Jase stops himself from doing anything further, profusely apologizes, and leaves.

A year later, poppa Jason has died and inserted in his will some type of way that tricks Brenna into going back to the ranch for three months or he stops her allowance. It is never told exactly how this family is super rich but I guess the fact that they own a ranch is some sort of a hint.

Since she wants to sign over her half of the ranch to Jase, she has to stay there for three months and visit for a week every two months. When she first flies out, she’s stranded at the airport. Her best friend, Stacy, curses Jase out enough to get him to come pick her up hours later. He questions why she didn’t call the house phone and she states that she tried but no one answered and any attempts to his cellphone were forwarded by Miriam, his secretary.

Miriam is also the girl he was dancing with a year ago and who Breanna assumes has slept with Jase. Once they reach they ranch, she goes upstairs and he has a talk with Miriam. Apparently we learn that Miriam is his cover-up. She’s supposed to keep Brenna away from Jase because he’s afraid of losing someone else he loves. He goes upstairs to check on Brenna and discovers that she’s the type of person to primp her outside when her inside isn’t feeling to well. Meaning she curls her hair and puts on makeup.

He can’t resist, so he initiates sex. Guess what? She’s a virgin. Throughout this sex scene though, they say things I wouldn’t expect a virgin to say but I guess since she masturbated a lot she was prepared. After their sex scene, she wakes up to an empty bed. She decides to go down to the pool but stops at the kitchen first. As she’s about to head out the pool, Jase comes into the kitchen. Insert unnecessary dialogue about how the ranch isn’t her home and she runs up the stairs crying.

After some talk from Miriam about how he needs to man up, Jase goes upstairs. Insert creep scene as he just begins stripping. Brenna is laying in her bed crying and he walks over to her, and begins talking. More sparks are flying and she begins giving him oral. After another sex scene, they finally have the talk. Basically she tells him she loves him. He tells her he’s afraid of loving her because he doesn’t want her to leave him. She is the one.

PROBLEMS

• Maybe you can tell the tone of voice I used while writing this but it was pretty boring. It was a big story of clichés and since it was just a short story, there was no room for clarification. However, the author gets no pass on this since she knew it was a short story as she was writing it. That means don’t add a lot of questionable things in there that you won’t be able to clean up.
• The attraction between Jase and Breanna isn’t well detailed. I didn’t feel it. It felt more like we are familiar with each other so why not? Like how you still have sex with your ex because you know him/her versus a complete stranger.

Clichés present

• Two white main characters
  • Once again, I have no problem with this but it does get annoying that instead of picturing myself in this story I have to picture a typical white girl. Also it’s mostly annoying because it kind of stamps into the mind that only white people have the ability to fall in love like this. I would love to see a white author write featuring different ethnicities like I know some black authors do.
• Heroine has masturbated.
  • This is not as common as these books make it seem. Just because she’s a virgin doesn’t mean she touches herself.
• One of them is rich.
  • Now that I’m writing this review I’ve noticed that in most books that I read, one of the main characters is stupid rich. I would love to read a book about a middle class couple.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Just no. it wasn’t even worth it to say this is an enjoyable read because it wasn’t. Nothing excited me. Nothing reeled me in except that I had already rented it so why not finish it. The cover is nice. Maybe that’ll go for you. One star!