Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Prescott Lane’s The Right Side of Wrong is an ode to overcoming your past. Through the journey of her hero and heroine, she takes us carefully on a journey toward love healing the injuries of the past. It’s heartbreaking, yet lovely in its capacity to wipe away the hurts of her characters, and it’s an apt reminder that love truly overcomes.
The story follows Paige and Slade, two people living their lives in different ways. Paige is a down-on-her-luck single mom who has to make difficult decisions to care for her son. This includes becoming an escort. On her first night, she encounters Slade, the son of the man with whom she is coupled. Slade forces her away from him, but there is something about her that keeps him intrigued. Unlike Paige, Slade is a wealthy, successful man; however, his life is narrow in its scope as a protection from the trauma of his past. When he offers Paige a job as a live-in housekeeper, he is drawn to her even if he doesn’t want to be. Given Paige’s past, she is insistent that she will never love. The push and pull of their relationship draws you further into Lane’s story, and before you know it, these two stop fighting their attraction and fall in deep. However, they each hold secrets. Will their secrets derail their future?
So what is right about The Right Side of Wrong?
*Overall, the characters’ stories are interesting. Paige’s is the most compelling and heart-rending, and I think Lane does a good job of investing you in it. You find yourself rooting for her characters, even though there are moments that build and end with little fanfare. Specifically, Slade’s secret feels a bit manufactured for emotions, but it doesn’t hit as much as Paige’s. Even more, Paige’s secret is obvious; it doesn’t have the punch that you might be expecting for this story.
*I love that Paige’s son is all sweetness and light. There isn’t drama where he’s concerned which means the drama is fully encapsulated in Paige and Slade’s journey.
*I found it interesting that Lane, instead of offering the story of Paige’s past in her own words, creates a specific space for it in the chronology of the story, and she crafts it from a third-person POV. Therefore, it’s outside the narrative and feels more reliable coming from that perspective. She also gave us quite a bit of Paige’s past, not just one necessary scene. It allows you to understand Paige’s psychology more.
*As Paige begins to lower her emotional, edified walls, there are moments that tug at your heart. They aren’t moments just with Slade, but also with other characters in the story, and they humanize her beyond her past.
*I LOVE that Slade adores her. He makes one misstep early on, but after that, Slade is all in with Paige, which means the journey becomes about helping themselves become more vulnerable with each other. This is the highlight of The Right Side of Wrong.
My biggest criticisms lie in the characterization of Slade and his secret and the pacing of the story. I’ve already mentioned the issue with Slade earlier in my review. Thus, the pacing of the revelation of Paige’s secret is problematic. I think Lane waits too long for its reveal, and it loses its punch. I would have revealed it sooner and had her work towards building back trust with Slade, but Lane makes Slade accommodating of it that the emotional impact fizzles quickly. Since Lane has invested her reader emotionally in her characters, undermining this emotional moment leaves you feeling underwhelmed at the end of The Right Side of Wrong.
There is an important message, however, in Prescott Lane’s newest book. There is trauma in it and her heroine, honestly, deserves her happy ending. If you love an emotionally driven journey about love overcoming the odds, then you will like The Right Side of Wrong.
In love and romance,
Professor A
Professor Romance 