Nameless by Claire Kent
Contemporary Romance
April 30, 2013
Self Published

Reviewed by Mandi

After reading and enjoying Escorted by Claire Kent earlier this year, I was eager to try more of her work. While I still think she has a really nice voice, the heroine gave me some problems in this one.

Erin remembers Seth Thomas from when they were kids. After a bad childhood, Seth turned his life around, went to college and is now a very wealthy, well known defense attorney. She sees Seth again at the funeral of a man that raised Seth in his later teen years. Seth never got along with him, and Erin is actually surprised to see him at the funeral. Feeling bad that no one else is talking to him, she introduces herself – which turns into them going out for drinks and then a one night stand.

This one night stand has a great consequence as Erin discovers she is pregnant. Hunting down Seth and informing him turns out to be stressful and cold. He accepts her decision to keep the baby and then surprises her by telling her he wants to be part of the baby’s life. Seth missed his chance at a childhood and now wants to try to be a parent himself. Erin is divorced from a controlling man and while she wants Seth to be a part of the baby’s life, she worries his wealth and dominant demeanor will try to take control of Erin.

As the pregnancy develops, Seth kind of becomes Erin’s booty call. They firmly establish they don’t want a relationship, but since she is already pregnant with his baby, they both figure a little sex to scratch Erin’s itch won’t hurt. Seth is a very interesting character. We don’t get his point of view, but you can tell he is intrigued by this pregnancy, even if he keeps himself at a distance. You can feel that he wants to redeem his lost childhood years and bad family experiences. He is calm and collected on the outside, but you get the feeling he is a mess on the inside. It didn’t bother me that we don’t actually know how he is feeling, as it plays out well only being in Erin’s point of view. He intrigued me almost as much as her hero in Escorted. I think she does a nice job with writing a hero who is sexy yet a little more on the cold, not so charming side.

My biggest frustration though comes with Erin. I feel like she never evolves in this book. She is scared of letting Seth have too much control, but I feel like she drags him along. And when Seth admits he is falling in love with her, her reaction is anger. I feel like everyone dumps a lot of crap on Seth, when all he does is try to make peace and be there every single time Erin needs him. Erin must have been pretty dense if she really didn’t realize that Seth (or even her) had feelings growing between them. I know she resists because of a bad first marriage, but after this kind of behavior over and over again, it became exhausting. I wanted to see her let her guard down. Even when she realizes she loves him, this is how she tells him:

“I know. I know. And I guess I really do love you, even though I don’t know exactly how it happened.” She felt blurry and happy and terrified – all at the same time. “But it doesn’t change everything. I’m not ready to jump into anything…permanent. This is still really new to me, and I don’t want to rush things.”

Although at this point the book is almost done, and Erin has been with Seth for over a year so I’m not sure how “new” this could really be to her. And again, Seth comes in with “We don’t have to rush anything.”

With a different heroine, I would have liked this a lot more. I wasn’t sure if I would like all the baby stuff (and it’s heavily focused on the pregnancy and then the newborn) but I actually liked that part.

Rating: C

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