Review: LOVED it! Madsen did a great job of developing her characters and creating a believable storyline and atmosphere for them!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 13, 2014
I have the first two books in this series sitting on my Kindle and all I can say after reading Resisting the Hero is: WHY THE HECK HAVE I NOT MADE TIME FOR THEM!? I really enjoyed Cindi's writing- she pulled me right in to the story and I was completely hooked. Characters from the previous novels make an appearance here, but I found it wasn't necessary to have read the first two books first. Cindi weaves them in to where fans of the older books will be happy to see them, but new fans such as myself don't get confused as to who is who.Let's start with uber sexy Connor Maguire, shall we? Oh boy. Connor is your typical playboy, or so we've heard. We hear about his reputation as being popular with the ladies, but we don't see it in this book. I liked that. I get bummed out when I first meet the hero and he's taking care of business with another girl who is NOT our heroine. When Connor first meets Faith, he not only notices how beautiful she is, but is drawn to her spunk. She shows up feisty, strong-willed, and quite headstrong. You can tell she doesn't fall for any crap and I like how she navigated Connor's smooth talking waters. He puts the C in cocky, but it's definitely not in a douchebag way. Connor has that playful cocky arrogance, and some of his lines are so hilarious!Faith is not unaffected by Connor. He may be cocky and arrogant, but he's definitely easy on the eyes. However, Faith always tends to pick the wrong guys and the most recent really left her in a bad way. From here on out, Faith wants a stable, sweet guy. Although she is typically attracted to the confident ones, she won't go down that road again. Connor is everything she knows she shouldn't want and yet she can't help but be attracted to him. He doesn't make it any easier on her as he enjoys getting under her skin and flirting with her. He knows she should be off limits, as she is his best friend's sister, but for the first time in a long time Connor finally wonders if he'd be willing to try his hand at a relationship again.I absolutely loved their romantic build up. Faith is incredibly stubborn, even after Connor proves his worth as a good guy. Not only does she not want to get hurt again, but she has a real problem with Connor's job. Connor and her brother Kaleb are both cops and are both newly trained SWAT members. This terrifies Faith as the last thing she wants is for anything to happen in the line of duty like it did for her father. Faith was always a daddy's girl and losing her dad was really hard on her. She couldn't stop Kaleb from joining the force, but for him to train for SWAT and be one of the first ones put in danger is too much for her. Kaleb has a wife, Anna, and a daughter, Ella, and another one on the way. He is a family man and while he thinks of their safety and protection, Faith really zones in on something happening to him and leaving his family behind like her father did. Kaleb and Faith's mother was never the same after losing her husband and the depression took hold of her to a point where she retreated and is now living with her mother in Virginia.I definitely understand Faith's hang ups. She has been hurt by her last boyfriend who always said he wasn't good at relationships and then when she caught him in the act with another woman, he threw that back in her face. Connor's reputation is all too reminiscent of her ex's and she lets her insecurities from the past taint what they could have with one another. There is also the tiny problem of Kaleb, who tells Connor there's no way they can be together. Gotta love the protective older brother! Connor tries to do the right thing and back off, but after spending more and more time with her, he realizes that he just can't and nor does he want to.I really enjoyed Kaleb, Anna, and Ella. You can tell they are a close family unit and I love how Connor has been incorporated into that. Watching him with little Ella will tug on your heartstrings and one of the reasons Faith lets her guard down with him. Ella is a handful, but she's really cute too and I liked how much interaction we got with her throughout the book. Faith is really there for her family when they need her and as hard as it was coming back to her hometown where so many memories of her father remain, she realizes maybe coming back wasn't the worst thing to ever happen to her.I really loved this book and I feel Madsen did a great job of developing her characters, as well as creating a believable storyline and atmosphere for them. It's a warm, fun, sweet book, but also has a serious side to it as well. Both our main characters have their own challenges and pasts to work through and I liked seeing their resilience and drive to do so. I want to give a huge thank you to Rachel Harris, Debbie Suzuki, and Cindi herself for making review copies available to Rachel's street team The Flirt Squad (in which I am happy to be a part!)