Second Sight Dating by Marianne Stephens

As of August 30, 2012, this book is currently free on Amazon.com (to be downloaded onto the free Kindle Cloud Reader which you can downloaded (for free) onto your laptop, desktop, or Kindle). Click here for the link. 

Book: Second Sight Dating

Author: Marianne Stephens

Rating: M for Mature Audiences (typical romance but "scenes" are not explicit)

Bookshelves: 2012, fiction, romance, psychic, USA, police, dating

Begun: August 29, 2012

Finished: August 30, 2012

Media Type: Kindle Book (on Kindle Cloud on laptop)

Setting: Never stated (assumed to be Wichita, Kansas as it is referenced twice)

Characters: Serena Xavier, Anthony Xavier, Gino Conti, Dan Reese/Carrington

Plot: Serena runs a psychic dating agency. She matches up men (whom she gets number readings from) with potential women (with whom she sees letters for). Dan Reese Carrington is a police officer who has been roped into posing as a potential client for Serena’s agency after the mayor’s daughter is solicited after a date.

The police now want to get to the bottom of it and Serena is their primary suspect. They think she is a kind of psychic madam.

Serena’s legit but the feels she’s having for her new client are less than professional. How can a man this handsome be dateless? How can a guy with this much chemistry blow off all his dates? How can Serena protect herself and her business from someone she knows she is falling for?

Personal Review: Serena seems to me to be a “weak” female character. I would have liked to see a little bit more backbone from her and a lot more character development from the author.

In both main characters’ cases, you get an inkling of their histories: Dan has an ex-wife who he kind of love but they divorced and Serena has an ex-boyfriend, named Alan, that is often referred to but only give one page in the entire book. Stephens could have garnered more sympathy for Serena and the position she lands in by the end of the novel by playing up both of the “failed” relationships. 

I could easily have put this book down and walked away from it (never to pick it up again). I would suggest the author go back and flush out the characters a little more, add some depth, and she might just have a decent novel on her hands.

In my opinion, this book gets 3 out of 5 stars.