Maddox by Melanie Moreland

A Review by Diane

Maddox 

(Vested Interest #3)

by 

Melanie Moreland

Five hot, sensual, dirty talking Stars!!!

*****

I have to start out by saying, I am in love.  No exclamation needed.  It’s a simple fact.  I’m in love with Maddox and the richness of the character that Melanie Moreland has created in her latest installment of her Vested Interest series.  I’m in love with Maddox Riley and his past, his present and the possible future I see laying before him with each word I read and each page I turn.   A man who is so imperfect, yet so willing to deal with his imperfections you can’t help but fall head over heels, plunging down a narrow crevasse, in love.  And through your love of this character, you, the reader, are vested in Maddox, the men of BAM and the Vested Interest series by Melanie Moreland.

Melanie has given us some of her greatest writing in Maddox.  You learn through her main character Maddox Riley, that life comes at you from all different angles and at different speeds.  That anyone who says they’ve walked through life without making mistakes, without facing adversity, without a possible “life altering” experience, is lying.  What it all comes down to is how a person “copes.”  To understand our main character Maddox, you have to understand his past.  Turbulent, cruel, and almost always spiraling out of his control.  In other words, a very nasty father.  But he did experience love from a mother who read to him and held him close who died when he was very young.  That love is still there, hidden deep within him.  Now grown, Maddox struggles with the necessary control to maintain the order that gives him a desperate kind of peace.

 

Through his friends/business partners/quasi-family, Maddox meets Dierdre Wilson (Dee for short).  A soulmate that matches his cool, controlling exterior.  Dee is professional and polished.  She had a difficult childhood, but was always there for her younger sister, Cami, who is now married to Aiden, a close friend and one of two business partners to Maddox.  Dee was burned badly by a “love” relationship when she was younger.  Both Maddox and Dee have learned that love has the power to hurt, so both have sworn off ever wanting a commitment, a marriage, a relationship, love.  They have become “friends with benefits” with some of the hottest, steamiest, catch your breath, swoon-worthy sex two characters can have.  (Wow Melanie…..where does this writing come from?  You had me fanning my almost faint heart, trying to catch my breath, it was so hot and sensual!!!)   You see, our Maddox is a bit dirty talking when it comes to his “friends with benefits” partner, Dee.  But as they start to spend more time with each other, something wonderful happens.  They enjoy being with one another.  Each fills a void that neither knew they had in their all too rigid life.  A relationship develops….feelings begin.  Yes, there are definite difficulties to overcome.  Some seem insurmountable, but with the help of their friends (and a surprise visit of a character from one of my all-time favorite books, a character I fell in love with years ago …..from another book of Melanie Moreland’s), both Maddox and Dee find their way.  Together.   We should all be so lucky to have these kind of friends in our lives!

Melanie Moreland is clever.  You think “Vested Interest” is simply the name of a series she is writing.  Wrong.  You, as the reader are the vested interest.  Melanie draws the reader into the lives of each of her characters, makes you walk their path and pulls you into the depth of their turbulent feelings as each struggles to understand their past and move forward to their future.  And you simply can’t walk away.  You are hooked into this series, and have a vested interest in knowing about Maddox, and Aiden and Bentley (and do I need to add Dee, Cami and Emmy?).  As you read Maddox (and hopefully Bentley and Aiden), you have become a part of BAM along with each of her characters.  What a wonderful thing to be vested in!

New York Times/USA Today bestselling author Melanie Moreland, lives a happy and content life in a quiet area of Ontario with her beloved husband of twenty-seven-plus years and their rescue cat, Amber. Nothing means more to her than her friends and family, and she cherishes every moment spent with them.

While seriously addicted to coffee, and highly challenged with all things computer-related and technical, she relishes baking, cooking, and trying new recipes for people to sample. She loves to throw dinner parties, and also enjoys travelling, but finds coming home is always the best part of any trip.
Melanie loves stories, especially paired with a good wine, and enjoys skydiving (free falling over a fleck of dust) extreme snowboarding (falling down stairs) and piloting her own helicopter (tripping over her own feet.) She's learned happily ever-afters, even bumpy ones, are all in how you tell the story.