Review: Saving Mitch (The MacDonald Brothers #1) by Emily Matthews

Title: Saving Mitch

Series: The MacDonald Brothers #1

Author: Emily Matthews

Genre: Adult, romantic suspense

Publication date: January 2020

Published by: Emily Matthews

Source: Amazon freebie

Add it on Goodreads

Buy it: Amazon

Synopsis: A hot-headed cop. A beautiful witness. And a bad guy after them both.

Officer Mitch MacDonald’s life is irrevocably changed when his partner is killed in the line of duty. His obsessive search for the culprit is about to cost him his job. When clumsy veterinarian Maggie Tucker witnesses a crime that could help Mitch catch the suspect, he must set aside his growing attraction to her to find the killer and keep them both safe.

When Maggie meets Mitch, sparks fly, but not in a good way. He witnesses her most embarrassing moment and then writes her a ticket! She immediately dislikes him, but once they are forced to spend time together, she begrudgingly finds herself falling for his sexy, bad-boy ways.

When the killer catches up with them, and Maggie is in danger, Mitch will do anything to save her. But when all is said and done, he’s left wondering who saved who.

My rating: ★★☆☆☆

Oh my god, this book...

I have always said that I’m not much of a romance reader, but as the years go by, I’m starting to realize that I like romance more than I thought I did. Do I read a copious amount of them? No. I read a handful a year, plus most of the books I read have romance in them. So I’m starting to figure out what I like and what I don’t like. And let me tell you, what this book had to offer, I did NOT like.

First of all, I hated the main characters. Mitch was an asshole. I don’t care how attractive the guy was, he didn’t need to be such a jerk. “Oh, but his past... his partner died-” Shove it! I don’t care! That does not give him the right to treat others the way he did. And I didn’t like his attitude of “a man like him doesn’t need a shrink.” Fuck right off with your toxic masculinity.

And don’t even get me started with all the objectification! His therapist is a very attractive woman who he once slept with, which... All sorts of issues there that I won't go into. But during his sessions, he would blame HER for his lack of focus because of what she was wearing!! Immediately NO.

But at least during one of those sessions she had the decency to wear slacks instead of a skirt so that he wouldn’t be distracted 🙃

God forbid he takes responsibility for his own feelings and actions 🙄 And the women in this book were no better when it came to objectification. It was shocking! Listen, I like when a character appreciates the attractiveness of another, but there is a fine line between that and objectification, and this book crossed it every time.

As for Maggie... a Mary Sue clumsy heroine??? How totally not cliche!

And the romance... honestly, I wouldn’t even call it a romance. It was nothing but lust and sex and ogling one another. Look, I love when a book has sexual tension between characters, and I don’t mind sex scenes in a book either, but those scenes mean absolutely nothing to me if there is no emotional attachment between the characters. And that could very well be just a me thing, which is fine. But this book had SO much freaking sex in it, and the characters didn’t even know each other! The amount of sex wasn’t the problem, it was that they didn’t stop to really get to know one another that was the issue for me! I just didn’t care for their relationship that, honestly, wasn’t really a relationship at all. And it’s fine if you read books just for the spice, it just clearly was not for me. I need substance in my relationships, otherwise I don’t care. (There were also a couple of “sexy” scenes that were so ridiculous they gave me secondhand embarrassment 👀 The way I CRINGED 😂)

This book is labeled as a romantic suspense, which is one of the reasons why I picked it up. But the romance and suspense were not balanced well at all. From my review, you can probably tell that the romance outweighed the suspense. I kept thinking how if this was a horror movie both of these unlikable protagonists would be dead SO fast! Waaaaait... now there’s an idea 👀

Probably would’ve made this book more interesting, to be honest 😂 This book was supposed to have a plot besides, you know, sex. Said plot didn’t really kick off until the 47% mark.

Yeah, I don’t know how I managed to not DNF this book. I didn’t enjoy this book, but it also (somehow) wasn’t the worst book I have read. The romance was not it. There was no substance to it... we were literally getting actual emotions at the 80% mark of the book! That is wild! And apparently, they get to know each other after the story wraps up, but before the epilogue?? Which is super cool because we got to see none of that 🙃 But let me say that the relationship between Adam (Mitch’s current partner) and Jenny (Maggie’s aunt) I DID like! The romance there was sweet and they took the time to get to know each other! That relationship had more substance than the one between the two protagonists!

Suffice to say, I will not be continuing the series. Shocker. I know 😆 Apparently the rest of the series follows Mitch’s brothers, but if they’re anything like Mitch, I want NOTHING to do with them.

Have you read this book? If so, what did you think about it? If not, what do you think? Does it sound like something you might want to read? Leave me a link to your review or comment below! 😊