One of my absolute favorite romance story lines is the idea of friends becoming lovers, especially if the pair knew each other when they were young and have found each other again. I love to read how the two develop emotionally from friendship to more. Because of that, I was really looking forward to reading I Only Have Eyes for You . Sadly, the story didn’t live up to my excitement, at all.

This book is the fourth in Andre’s The Sullivan’s series and revolves around sister Sophie. She is one of the twin sisters from the Sullivan family and has always been called Nice, with her sister being Naughty, of course. Sophie has had a crush on family friend Jake McCann since she was young and she is ready to shed her nice image and seduce him. She sees her brother’s wedding as the perfect opportunity.

I think that Andre missed the opportunity to deal with the unrequited love Sophie has for Jake and Jake’s growing realization of feelings for Sophie. There was so much tension and emotion possible and yet it all got skipped. Sophie flirts with Jake, gets him into bed, and then they just sort of go on that way. I wanted to throttle Sophie at times. If you want a man to notice you as a woman, then act like one. She asks Jake to pretend to be her boyfriend to make her ex jealous, except the guy isn’t actually her ex. So, not only is that a totally immature tactic to begin with, it was also a lie. To me, it sounded like something a desperate, sad teenager would do, not a grown, educated woman.

Jake’s only reasons for avoiding a relationship with Sophie are that he thinks her brothers would disapprove and, of course, his Big Secret. Jake is incredibly insecure, even though he has made a huge success of himself running pubs and restaurants. Since Sophie is a librarian, she tries to share her love of reading with him but, (cue the dramatic music) he has dyslexia. I seriously had to stop and think, wait, that’s his Big Secret? I could understand that being somewhat embarrassing, but he had already hired a tutor and learned to read in the past. I really didn’t understand why that would be such an issue for him, especially enough of one to keep he and Sophie apart.

Another romance trope that I love is the unexpected pregnancy. I think that, in modern times, this is one of the most believable ways to throw a couple together who has physical chemistry, but haven’t fallen in love. We may not have arranged marriage these days or much in the way of marriages of convenience, but people really do hook up and then get married because of pregnancy. Plus, it gives the couple the length of the pregnancy to fall in love, or the time that they are raising the baby. Sadly, this was another way that I Only Have Eyes for You disappointed me. I hope I’m not spoiling too much but Sophie does get pregnant. Even that storyline was a little flat for me.

There isn’t much tension over the unrequited love, there isn’t much interest with the pregnancy, there isn’t an exciting Big Secret, so, what is there? Sex. Lots and lots of sex. The sex scenes go on for pages and pages, to the point of boredom. The majority of this book is the couple getting it on and thinking about how they’re not worthy of each other. I noticed this same issue with the last book of Andre’s that I read. It had a decent start and a decent ending, but the plot gets a little loose in the middle. There’s only so many vanilla sex scenes and moments of insecure introspection that you can read before it just gets old.

I don’t want to make it sound like this was just a terrible book, it really wasn’t. However, it did need a little work. I wanted stronger emotions and motivations from the characters. The plot needed to be tightened up some to decrease the drag in the middle. I would’ve liked Sophie to be a little more mature. As a librarian myself, I could help but feel frustrated with someone who would have to have a Master’s Degree to do her job, yet acted like such a dunderhead. There are probably plenty of people out there who might not be bothered by all of these issues, as Andre obviously has a fan base.

My overall impression of this book was that it had a decent, sexy start and satisfying ending, but the middle was too slow. The lack of emotional depth or character motivations made I Only Have Eyes for You forgettable. In fact, it was so forgettable that I had actually read it back when it was originally released and didn’t even recognize it this time around. It wasn’t until I started reading that I realized this was the same book I had read a year before, just with a different cover.