Sun God Seeks... Surrogate? by Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

The Basics:
Sun God Seeks... Surrogate? by Mimi Jean Pamfiloff
Forever
Book Three in the Accidentally Yours series
Romance
Published February 25, 2014 (?)
Source: Received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Amazon.ca Kobo.com

Why I picked up this book:

This book sounded fun - the idea of a god being manipulated by his sister into, essentially, falling in love, and having to rethink his views on a few things sounded... fun?


Blurb:

A Deal from Heaven

Living in New York City, Penelope Trudeau has seen a lot of weird stuff-but nothing like the insane redhead who accosts her with a wild proposition. Penelope will get a million dollars if she has a baby with the strange woman's brother. With her mother dying from a mysterious disease, Penelope can use the money. Yet the terrified waitress is adamant that her womb and eggs are not for sale . . . until she meets her intended mate. He's impressively built, gorgeous, and red-hot, literally. He's a freaking immortal Sun God.

For thousands of years, Kinich (Nick to his friends) didn't believe in fraternizing with humans, so procreating with them is definitely a no-no. But after one sizzling encounter with the beautiful, passionate Penelope, Nick begins to think he was wrong . . . until he realizes meeting Penelope was just another one of his crazy sister's schemes at manipulation. But now that he has Penelope in his life, he can't let her go. Especially because doing so means throwing her into the hands of his dangerous enemies.

My thoughts:

The book blurb does not do a good job of conveying the tone/style of this book at all. It is very, ah, quirky. Kooky? Eccentric? It's definitely not for everyone.

So despite a few glaring issues (entirely personal pet peeves, I'll acknowledge), I thought this book *was* fun. There's a certain helter-skelter, arms-pinwheeling,  craziness to it that, so long as I was willing to go along for the ride, made this a quick and fun read.

Kinich is arrogant, as a god has every right to be, he's sexy and he's just a little tortured. Determined that his place is 'apart' from the mortals he's charged with watching over, Kinich is in serious need of some relaxation and comfort.

Penelope is skeptical, kick-ass and really wants to go back to the life she knows and loves despite falling deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole. The craziness she faces keeps being stacked higher and higher, and while she's determined to soldier through, I felt bad for her.

The two of them together worked okay for me, but they didn't have nearly enough actual face-to-face time to satisfy me. They were also facing ridiculous odds in terms of having everything stacked up against them - there was very little they could do to control or affect their situation. Instead, they had to cope with all the bad things that kept happening.

My biggest issue with the book is Cimil, Kinich's sister. She's so off-the-wall that I found any time she was actually on the page, I wanted to skip past her nonsense. I also felt zero sympathy for her at any point in the book because she crosses one of my lines through her treatment of Penelope and Kinich early in the book - exactly what happens is revealed across the story so I'll resist ranting about it. Suffice to say, I found it unforgiveable. I realize that the tone of the book is light and fluffy and zany which is why she kind of gets a pass, but really... just no.

A lot of the action takes place off screen, which would be fair if this was strictly a romance novel. The romance doesn't quite get the full billing it deserves, though, and I think that amping up the action part might have helped balance things a little so that the ending was more satisfying.

And on that topic, the book ends on a question mark. It's sort of mixed - happy, not happy, bittersweet.... I'm not sure how it'll come together in the next book in the series, and because of my frustration with Cimil, I don't think I'm in for that. This left me a little disappointed because while a lot of the story is wrapped up, I don't think the major story arc is actually complete. And since each book is cast as being for a different god/goddess.... I found the book frustrating.

Bottom line:

I couldn't get over the things that irked me about Sun God Seeks...Surrogate?  It wasn't the book I thought it would be based on the blurb, and even though I tried to get into the zaniness of everything, there was so much manipulation of the main characters and seemingly so little they could actually do to cope/control their situation that in the end, I have to recommend passing on this one.

2.5 stars
For fans of the Accidentally Series, kooky books