“You’ve gotta give me more than ten minutes, sweetheart.”
― Lia Peele, Definition of Flawed

How about a week and two hundred and thirteen pages, so am I ready to talk about it now… four out of five stars seem to dictate that I sort of want to don’t they. I think this would be more suited for The Richard Bey show or maybe Jerry Springer, hell you could throw in a few more talk show host like Maury or maybe Steve Harvey because I’m going to make plenty of mistakes with this just saying.

This book wasn’t a mistake though it certainly lived up to its name, a drunk father, college girl, a son around her age, I swear it took me right back to those chants of Jerry, Jerry, from the talk shows. Speaking of the talk, not to sound like you know who and Norway but it’s always nice to read an author from across the pond, meaning England, to be honest, this is probably the third book I’ve reviewed from a Brit that I know some. It’s sort of cool to look up words you see one way, and they regard another, but better you be prepared for it right now because it could get confusing.

Plot-wise you could see what was coming rather quickly, but then there’s the portion of the book where chairs start getting thrown and fists start swinging, glad there was a bit of that in there. That’s how real the characters feel, and you can’t help but wonder what you would do in that situation, for me this touched on a personal level, but I don’t want to spoil it yet… Don’t judge a book by its cover either, while it’s a bit racy inside and out this is more family drama, sort of like Thanksgiving all year, they could have stood to drink that much more.

Seeing as this was just the prequel to a series, I can only imagine it’s going to crank up the sex factor and that we may get even more secrets from the whole family and I will admit that it’s somewhat tempting. You’ll have fun trying to guess who indeed is the most flawed and it was surprising that a woman isn’t always right, well at least one of them.

“hot ‘n spicy loving, hmm.”
Lia Peele, Definition of Flawed

Paul Jackson is probably not the typical bad boy women think about, criminal, billionaire, ex-soldier, a prisoner with a good heart. He’s a regular working man with a penchant for alcohol. Though older than Scarlett I’ve read through all the types. Of course, you know right off the bat that he won’t win, then again who knows, the start of the series but yeah no, he has plenty of fun.

Scarlett Trent drifts between that young, have fun college girl and homemaker mentality, knows what she’s doing in the bedroom and honestly tries in the kitchen, she stocks the fridge. I couldn’t see myself falling in love with her, but there is somebody for everyone and her and Paul… seriously whoever wants to tell their parents their right about relationships.

Then we have Dev, and cue Taylor Swift, I knew you were trouble when you walked in, but that could also mean Paul as well, like father, like son I guess but you knew at least the Scarlett and Dev portion of the story in seconds. Having read a preview of the next book, well maybe it’s a bit too soon to start making those sort of predictions.

As for other characters, you got the college friends, the boys looking at Scarlett like a MILF, and the typical mommy and daddy dynamic, which was a bit too reasonable to be believable but maybe that’s just me. The only other most damaging character is Stacey, and again I’m not trying to give anything away, but I think the term ratchet should apply to her. Sort of an avalanche of exposition, a moment of remembering who the real enemy is, and that’s sad when it comes to her but a quick break from the sexual tension. For all the rapid sex scenes between Paul and Scarlett it does cool down rather quickly, but the story is intriguing.

“I took one look at him and went in the opposite direction.”
Definition of Flawed

Hopefully, as the song goes, you’ll follow me, as I was telling the author my Kindle tends to lose everything or maybe it’s a trick from Amazon to get me to buy more books, but I became invested enough to see how this turned out. It is a solid four out of five, and any significant gripes; the ending is a bit lacking, and the story like most trailers nowadays gives up, too much, too soon, and an overflow of revelations doesn’t exactly make up for anything, like Dev you’re like what the hell happened.

You might want to turn around now because I’ll try not to spoil a lot but there were plenty of things to like such as you guessed it, the sex scenes, short but dirty and Scarlett is a woman coming into her own, and then a kiss… The revelations scene while being a bit much will bring out your inner drunk, thanksgiving relative nature, or talk show persona, I can’t stress that enough. I’ve also stated that you’ll be looking up things like does England have Starbucks, just thinking of Scarlett’s coffeehouse profession, and of course a bit of language.

The ending, the timeframe goes from a coffeehouse girl to now, and I suppose the author wasn’t interested in a few weeks of crying, but there had to be a better way to transition. When Paul talks to Scarlett about Dev, it’s like okay and then but wait there is so much more, and it’s just rammed in, tying up Dev in a cute bow and lead to something big? In an unoriginal fashion and strangely enough I believe in love at first sight maybe you have to be a woman to understand what goes through the mind of any girl seeing a man and suddenly it’s just okay dibs.

Other than this I haven’t read any of Lia Peele’s work but this one I will be on the lookout for more of her books, not waiting in line, first day on Amazon, but more like, okay I got this oh look another Lia Peele novel. Now if you’ll excuse me since I don’t drink coffee and I’m not a big drinker I’ll drown in more words to be sure, Definition Of Flawed, Madness, Love.