Review: Great book with a lot to offer!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 17, 2014
M. Stratton was a new to me author. I’ve heard a lot about her books, and her Storm Series sounded pretty interesting to me even though it’s not my normally preferred genre. I saw her promo pics on social media and even the promo made me ask myself just what was going on in her books, so I decided to try them out.I’m very glad I read After the Storm. It’s about this chick, Alexia. She lives on her own and seems to be pretty content just being on her own and doing her own thing. She’s got a pretty nasty history thanks to a psychopath, but seems to be adjusting ok. Rock star Noah Matthews finally makes an appearance in his house next door that has been taken care of by an older couple for the past few years, so Lexi doesn’t realize who really owns the house next door until Noah decides to take a vacation to his beach house. The way they meet is actually pretty cute so I’m not going to spoil that for you here.After the Storm follows the progression of Lexi and Noah’s “relationship” as well as gives us glimpses into Lexi’s past experiences with a stalker. Lexi does tell Noah about her experience and the ultimate arrest and imprisonment of the psychopath. One of the things that made me leery of reading this book was that I’m not comfortable with the stalker/violence/rape theme I thought would be prevalent in the story. Just so you know, while the story IS told, the author does NOT go into graphic detail. You get the gist of what happened to Lexi without the gory details. So please don’t let it keep you from reading a great book like I did for far too long.The dynamic between Noah and Lexi was fun. They each had a great sense of humor and real personality that despite my initial dislike for Noah caused me to like him anyway. I really hoped that Lexi could open up to him enough for them to have a happy ending. I loved their chemistry and seriously couldn’t wait for them to get it on.I wasn’t a huge fan of Noah to start with. He seemed very forward and too sure of himself. Noah lived the “typical” rock star life style. He came to his beach house to get away from everything, which I thought was cool.Lexi was a complicated character for me. I loved her personality and sense of humor. I loved her positivity. I loved the fact that she was able to survive her horrifying ordeal with a killer psychopath, and appeared to come out of it with seemingly minimal psychological damage. She was able to move on with her life and not let the incident ruin her life. I think that’s awesome. Where my problem lies is in the idea that she seems to be much too trusting and nonchalant about everything. Weird things start to happen that I would think would alert her to something creepy going on, but she doesn’t react the way I think she should. If I had the experience that she had, I think I would be calling the cops at every single thing that happened that she just blew off.I have had to remind myself that I have NOT been in Lexi’s shoes. I have never lived through an encounter even similar to hers, so there is really no way for me to say for sure what I would do in her situation. This is one of those things that until you are in that situation, you really can’t say how you would respond, and since everyone is different, we all have different personalities and what works for one person may not work for another. So my assumptions that how she was responding to these creepy things happening to her was wrong, I needed to remember that they were wrong for ME, not necessarily for anyone else. I did have to question Noah’s lack of response to certain things, but hey, no one is perfect, even fictional hot guys.The highlight of this book, for me, was the “Troublesome Trio”. They are 3 elderly friends of Alexia’s now deceased grandmother and they are the horniest old ladies in the history of horny old ladies. They were hilarious. The torture they put their poor repair guys through, oh my god, I was dying.And damn can Stratton write a bad guy! She really pulls out the crazy for this guy!After the Storm  has a lot to offer its reader. It’s multifaceted in the sense that there is love, humor, action, creepiness, and thrilling moments where you have no idea which way things are about to go.  I knew something was up, but I really didn’t expect what actually happened in the end! Stratton really keeps the readers on their toes with her storytelling and I look forward to reading the rest of this series.I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a good thriller. The romance isn’t sappy and overbearing. You can see the characters developing friendship with the hopes of something more, but are never guaranteed things would work out.