REVIEW: LOVE ELIMINATION BY SARAH GATES

Due to time restraints while I work on my own novel, reviews on this site will now comprise a book blurb and a short response.

Sometimes things don’t quite work out as easily as you hope. That’s what the heroine of Love Elimination by Sarah Gates finds when she goes on a reality TV show of the same name. Here’s the blurb:

Anna is a reluctant fill-in coerced onto the show by her sister, a producer. She dreams of owning her own dessert café; a dream that has taken years of hard work and strict saving. She knows reality TV is a big, manipulated lie — and gorgeous leading man Luke Westwood can’t possibly be for real. Can he?

Olympian snowboarder Luke Westwood thought he had retired from competition. Now he’s starring in the cutthroat world of Love Elimination, with twelve beautiful women vying for his attention against the backdrop of a tropical paradise.  With cameras in every corner, why is it only Anna — careful Anna with her bills and budgets — who Luke feels he can be himself with, at long last?

All Anna wants is a quick elimination, but with each date she is more reluctant to relinquish Luke to the conniving contestants — or even to the women who are starting to become friends. It doesn’t help when Luke insists on using the limitless television budget to indulge her heart’s desires. Or that the moments they’ve stolen, alone and away from the cameras, have sizzled with passion. As the dates wear on the evictions become more brutal and the contestants’ secrets are exposed. Will the pressure get too much? Or will love close in on Luke and Anna?

Fans of The Bachelor will love this reality TV-themed tale. Entertaining and spicy, Love Elimination throws together two people who don’t really want to be reality TV stars, but are doing what it takes albeit for rather different motivations. The attraction between Luke and Anna plays out well and there’s a good, heated chemistry between them that keeps the pages turning. I’m not a fan of The Bachelor so the premise wasn’t a draw for me, and I found this predictable in many ways, but Love Elimination is nonetheless a well-written, fun, escapist read.

Available from good bookstores (RRP $29.99AUD). My copy was courtesy of Harlequin Mira.