What do you do when you have to choose between love or family?

All Geneva wants to do is continue her grandfather’s vision of giving unconditional love to animals who don’t get it from anyone else. Their animal shelter has become a home to both of them that she’s determined to continue for the rest of her life. She wants to rescue as many animals as possible.

All Oswald Stork wants to do is make his family proud and show them that their sacrifices have made him successful. And he gets a chance with the deal of a lifetime that will cement his family’s real estate company as the most successful firm in the city. All it means to him is ensuring that Geneva and her grandfather and all her animals move out.

You can already tell these two are gonna lock horns.

But are they gonna do more than that afterwards? Because each of them is so focused on bringing pride to their family, they may not see they’re falling in love with each other.

Will they continue the fight for their family? Or will they abandon their family’s dreams in the name of love?

Review

The synopsis of Rival Romeo promises a different book than what occurs. Geneva and Oswald didn’t feel like rivals. Nor were there any grand conflicted feelings of going against their families. Instead, what happened was Oswald followed the orders of his parents. He doesn’t question their orders. Geneva gets upset with the Stork family; however, she doesn’t truly put up a fight. Her emotions regarding the animals felt stronger than her desire to fight for her family. There is an emotional moment that occurs with a few dogs that she is close with. I think that was the strongest moment within the story. The author spends a lot of time “telling,” and with that scene, they “showed.”

There’s a much better version of this book that focuses entirely on Geneva and her crusade against Oswald’s family. I would have much preferred that rather than having them fall in love. The two of them lacked chemistry, and their story felt stiff.

Final Thoughts

Rival Romeo was a disappointing romance novella without excitement and chemistry between the leads.