Review: No Promises. No Expectations
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 12 7, 2013
This book starts intense.  Heartache from page 1 and I am hooked.GraHam (Ham) Reece is not into commitment.  He  is a free spirit and wont  commit to one place or one woman.  He is an easy  man but set in his ways and he looks for women who are also easy, laid back and good but (and it’s a BIG BUT) Ham has lots of issues.  He calls a spade a shovel when he makes his point and at times I scratched my head wondering where the hell he was going with his long winded convoluted conversations.Zara Cinders and Graham Reece have history - intense history.  They have been on and off for years and  were only an “item“ when he was in town.  Ham understood the word exclusive but he didn’t endorse it.  He respected it but he always found ways to work around it.  No promises or expectations from him.  He had other women and didn’t hide it and he didn’t question if Zara had other men. No questions asked and that’s the way he wanted it.  Zara accepted that and was always there waiting - always missing him, loving him and hoping. So Ham had no hold on Zara and Zara had no hold on Ham.  She didn’t want that but didn’t say anything for fear of losing him.But then he lost Zara.She wanted a family, wanted to be settled, come home at night knowing what her evening would bring, wake up to someone knowing what the day would bring.  So after being friends with benefits with Graham Reece for 5 years she knew that wasn’t going to happen with him but good, decent Greg could give her all that………………..even though he wasn’t the “one”.So she lied to Ham - they weren’t that serious right? -  so she let him go and he walked away.Three years later Zara is single again, destitute and alone…………..until Ham comes back.I just love Kristen Ashley’s heroes and heroines.  They are “real, ”you can feel them and can connect with them.  Her alpha’s are intense and over the top, her heroines are insecure full of doubt and boy do they fall hard when they meet one of KA’s alpha’s.This author will always be a 5 star read for me.  She gives me what I want from a romantic, angsty read and delivers her story in her own special way.If I could I would have given this more than 5 stars for the Prologue and the Epilogue.  It was writing at its best. 5,644 pages of magic .