ARC Review: I Love You Subject to the Following Terms and Conditions by Erin Lyon

In this book, the first in the Contract Killers series, the world is the same as today, but with one big difference; there is no such thing as marriage, instead people “sign” with someone. This is basically the same as marriage only it has an end date; 7 years. After the 7 years is up you can either part ways or reup the contract for another 7 years.

Kate is at the end of her 7 years with Jonathan, the love of her life, and assumes they are going to reup…until he tells her otherwise. Now she is a broken hearted newly qualified and unemployed attorney in her 30s living with her parents. And just to make her life more complicated she may be falling in love with a contract killer, a person who only “gets involved” with people who are signed.

I know titles are supposed to be short and snappy…but I find I am attracted to the long and snappy ones, historical romance seems to do this especially well. I can’t wait for someone to finally bring out: The Day the Duke Tripped Over the Fence & I Fell in Love, I’ll be all over that! Which, is why I had the burning urge to pick up this book, with the rather cumbersome, yet eye catching title of: I Love You Subject to the Following Terms and Conditions.

So, my thoughts on this…the big one is: I thought this had a HEA! I figured each book was going to be a different character in the series finding their one true love and all the drama that that encapsulates. Instead it ended on a bit of a cliffhanger with me screaming “Noooooooooo!” to the ceiling. Does Kate figure which of the platoon of guys chasing the lucky biatch she’s going to settle on and they fall madly in love? No. That doesn’t happen. At least not yet.

The amount I enjoyed this book did surprise me, one because of the above and two because there is some kind of weird love triangle/square thing going on. Which is something I normally avoid at all costs, it ends up bugging the life out of me. It still might with this series, but at the moment I’m okay with it and I can’t wait to read the next book and see what happens next.

I liked this book because of another triangle it had; My Golden Triangle (yes it deserves capitals), and everything contained within that triangle I am bound to at least like. My Golden Triangle: humour-that-actually-makes-me-laugh; sexy-alpha-male-I-don’t-want-to-kill; heroine-I-can-stand, it also upgraded a little to The Golden Square (yes more capitals!) and had an interesting idea.

The reason I didn’t give it more than 3.5 stars is because although I could stand the heroine, I did find her a little irritating at times, but I believe that stems from it being told in first person, the pressure to make every sentence witty must be intense and yet I often find, with UF being the exception, that this leads the book to seem like it’s trying too hard.  Also, love triangles, I am naturally an impatient person and so I spend most my time during love triangles irritated that people won’t just make up their bloody mind and get on with it. And those feelings started to come out by the end of the book.

Will I continue to read this series? Hell. Yes. I need to know what happens next, I’m pretty sure my “Nooooo!” is still echoing off my ceiling.