Review: When Gracie Met the Grump - Mariana Zapata

Review: When Gracie Met the Grump - Mariana Zapata - September 2022

For months, this chunky tome had been giving me the stink eye from my bookshelf, practically screaming "Read me!" But I'll admit, I was intimidated. Mariana Zapata has earned her reputation as the undisputed Queen of Slowburn Romance, and her books don't mess around – we're talking 600+ pages of pure, unadulterated tension before our leads even hold hands properly.

True to form, When Gracie Met the Grump delivers exactly what Mariana Zapata fans expect: approximately 500 pages of sizzling foreplay, razor-sharp banter, and chemistry so thick you could cut it with a knife, before finally – finally – letting our characters crash together in the last 100 pages. And you know what? It works. Mariana Zapata's writing style is so engaging that the slowburn never feels like a drag. She's mastered the art of making readers desperate for that payoff.

This particular story offers a fun twist on the typical contemporary romance formula. Our male lead is literally a superhero – part of an alien race, no less – while Gracie is refreshingly ordinary, a "plain Jane" who's been running from the cartel for thirty years after something her parents did when she was just five years old.

Here's where my suspension of disbelief started wobbling. Thirty years, people. She hasn't seen her parents since she was five, yet the cartel is still hunting her down for money or information she clearly doesn't have. At what point do you cut your losses and accept that a woman who was barely out of diapers when her parents disappeared probably isn't sitting on your missing fortune? The logic felt frustratingly thin.

Similarly, when The Defender gets seriously injured, Mariana Zapata glosses over crucial details. Who hurt this supposedly almighty being? How did they render him powerless? These plot holes left me scratching my head.

What really threw me, though, was the juvenile humor sprinkled throughout – toilet talk about peeing and pooping, and Gracie's bizarre habit of sniffing him like he's a newborn baby. It felt like Captain Underpants had wandered into an adult romance novel, and the tonal whiplash was jarring.

Despite these gripes, I genuinely enjoyed the ride. Mariana Zapata's character development remains top-notch, and the emotional payoff, when it finally arrives, feels earned. The banter sparkles, the tension is palpable, and the alien superhero angle adds delightful novelty to familiar tropes.

Will I continue my Mariana Zapata shelf-clearing mission? Absolutely. Her ability to make slowburn romance feel fresh and addictive keeps me coming back, plot holes and toilet humor notwithstanding.

Amazon: https://amzn.to/4lScI1y