Accidental Texting: Finding Love Despite the Spotlight by Kimberly Montague

 Morgan Edwards has been through a lot: being left at the altar by a man trying to use her, losing her mother to Cancer, and now she's trying to keep her mom's dream alive by running the Victorian inn they spent years restoring together. Her world is such a mess that she has no time for distractions. But when it feels like things are hopeless, an accidental text message manages to pull her out of this pit of despair and infuse a little excitement into her life.

Sean Wilder has it all: fame, fortune, and a very long list of ladies who've shared his bed. But what he finds in the girl he accidentally texts is entirely unexpected. Too accustomed to a world where everyone has an ulterior motive, he's taken aback by Morgan's honesty, her sincerity, and her struggle to do everything on her own despite the incredibly tough spot she's in.

While similar life experiences draw them to one another, can they fit together when Morgan finds out Sean's true identity? And can she find a way to fit next to him in the spotlight?

Normally, I'm a fan of the celebrity romance and at first glance this seems like a great premise. An accidental text brings too people together. Stranger things have happened, right? Well, unfortunately, the story just didn't come together. From the pace of the story to the characterization to the length of the book, I'm sorry to say that this story was just all sorts of wrong.

The plot is fairly simple at first.  Morgan runs an Inn in a small town in Vermont.  She was jilted by her ex-fiancé and just lost her mother.  She’s sworn off men, though she apparently has a little something-something on the side with a man who is “just a friend”.  Anyway, she gets a mysterious text one day from an unknown number, a man groveling to be forgiven by a woman he apparently cheated on.  Her friend convinces her to play along and have a bit of fun with the texting, so she pretends to be the stranger’s girlfriend.  After several exchanges she tries to come clean and he doesn’t believe her, so she sends him to her Inn’s website to confirm who she really is.  So begins a texting relationship with stranger who limits the information he gives her, and refuses any personal details.  What happens when she finds out he’s really one of Hollywood’s most eligible bachelors?

First off, Morgan made no sense to me. She's a young, independent woman who has had to face a lot of hardship in her life. Or no, wait; she's a victim of domestic abuse. No, wait; she's a quiet and soft spoken woman who submits to a man with a soft "Okay". No, no, no...she's fierce with a hair trigger temper and is willing to tell off large and muscular strangers at the drop of a hat. You can see where I'm going with this. Morgan's character was just all over the place. She didn't make sense to me, and she seemed so schizophrenic in her emotions that it just made me feel unclear as to who Morgan was. And Sean....not a great hero. He's a controlling douche. He doesn't so much as ask Morgan what she wants as tell her, and he was just SO full of himself. Perhaps that true to Hollywood, but I don't want to read about him telling everyone how great and sexy he is and how much money he has for nearly 500 pages. And if I had to read him saying "sweetie" one more time, I was going to stab my eyes out with the corner of my kindle case. He did not endear himself to me.

Another thing that I found aggravating was the pace of the relationship between Morgan and Sean. There were just all kinds of red flags. It wasn't romantic to read about at all for me. I can go with an uber fast plot line if it's set up right, but this author just failed to truly show the connection between the H/h for me. I felt that Sean merely wanted to possess Morgan. She was a thing to him. Not exactly a sweep the reader off her feet narrative. And the plot just seemed to get more and more ridiculous. A super-fast romance, an abusive ex...It just kept going and going and going, and I found myself nearly giving up on the whole thing.

I really don't want to be too mean, writing a book is quite an accomplishment. The book just needs a lot of work. I honestly don't know what I can say about this that's positive besides it had an ending...finally.  2 stars

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