The Stopover by T.L. Swan was certainly not the psychological thriller that I was expecting. The biggest reason the book didn’t meet my expectations was because it’s actually a romance novel and I am an idiot.

You would have thought that the fact that it is part of a series called “The Miles High Club” would have clued me in. It did not… Regardless, I decided to continue reading the book and must say I found myself being fairly shocked on multiple occasions. I can’t say that I’ve ever actually read a book from the romance genre but I can assure you that I did not ever think romance books would basically be erotica. I suppose it isn’t necessarily that different from the sex scenes that seem to exist in every show on TV these days but it was very odd to read.

The story is about a woman called Emily who lives in California but had a job interview in New York. She is a journalist and wants a job at a specific company. While flying home from London she meets a man who offers to switch seats with her and he seems to be fairly charming. The two seem to really hit it off and their flirting continues to escalate. By the time they are about to land Emily tells the man how she can’t stay in New York because after her interview she must catch another plane to California. Soon after though their flight gets diverted due to weather and Emily has the night of her life with the man she met on the plane.

Fast forward and it was still the best experience of her life, something she can not ever forget. Luckily though for her, as fate would have it, she gets to experience these things again, but she didn’t expect her relationship with this man would be what it turned out to be.

The “romance” parts aside I thought the story was interesting. I continued to want to read it despite being fairly repulsed by the description and commentary of some parts of the story.

I would obviously not recommend this book for anyone who wants to avoid trash novels or who doesn’t like to read curse words fairly frequently. It isn’t the romantic tale I was expecting after realising it wasn’t a psychological thriller but it did certainly keep me hooked and despite my complaints, for £1.00 it was worth every penny.

I did not buy the audio book narration (if there is one) and I don’t think I would have been able to hear someone say the words in this book without feeling uncomfortable or laughing. Loads of parts seemed super cheesy and completely unrealistic. There was not a lot of depth to the additional characters but I expect that is likely common when a books main focus seems to be discussing sex acts in detail. I honestly don’t know how anyone could write books like this and not feel embarrassed when getting them published but to each their own.