Review: *sigh* Sucker for a soldier...
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 10, 2014
Again, repost of my Goodreads review. It shouldn't matter, but just so someone doesn't complain, there you have it.I loved book 1 in the Now series so much that I had to go immediately to Amazon and 1-click the second book! I'm a sucker for a soldier. I've said this a lot lately. I've been writing three of them over the course of the last year and I keep coming across stories with soldiers in them that I can't put down. So it's no surprise that I loved Ben when he's a former Marine. Then he's a detective, protective of his twin sister and of Layla (who, let's face it, could use a guy like him in her life to keep the jerks away, at the very least), willing to lend a hand, is good with a hammer, is a beast of a man at 6'5" and 240lbs, talks dirty, has tattoos, rides a motorcycle, likes to hike...need I go on? Because damn, I think maybe Brenda Rothert was inside my head while she wrote him and plucked all these traits I keep writing into my male leads. Didn't you know when women write romance stories they're writing out their fantasies to some extent? Uh huh.Layla is the older sister of Emma from book 1. She's pretty peeved at the end of that story because her sister has effectively stolen the guy she'd had her sights set upon (though, said guy, Cole, wasn't interested in her). She and Emma have made a little truce, but the situation still smarts for Layla, and being around the happy couple is nauseating at best, painful at worst. She's sworn off men, particularly casual relationships (which for her, mean casual sex), because she had a bad experience on New Year's Eve, just a couple weeks after the Cole-and-Emma bomb was dropped. The majority of the story picks up the following summer.On a task for the pro bono work she does with an agency that advocates for the mentally ill, Layla meets Chicago PD Sergeant Ben Montrose. The instant chemistry between them isn't anything Layla wants to entertain. She's holding out for the real deal this time around, and she's pretty sure Ben isn't the kind of guy to settle down. After a couple meetings, the two of them end up playing a little game of who's in control here, and eventually, neither one is sure if it's just for fun or getting far deeper than they had ever expected.Overall, a fantastic read. It was quick and enjoyable and everything a great story wants to be. I'm excited to find a fellow author who likes to write in the frank tone of NA, but with a more mature set of life-changing experiences than that of the post-high school/college/immediately post-college characters typical of that genre. Eagerly anticipating book 3! And now I want to read more of her work! Dystopia? I'm there!