Review: Brought back my own feelings from late teenage years...
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 15, 2014
I really enjoyed Tempting Tatum from the first page.  Poor Tatum.  Tragedy is an understatement for what she goes through right at the beginning of the book.  She runs to her boyfriend, needing comfort, only to find him with another woman.Her best friend and her fiancé are moving to Tennessee for work and they talk her into going along to start her life over.  There is nothing left to tie her to Ohio, so why not?Through the job she finds she meets Blaise, this sexy firefighting tattoo artist, and his family.  I LOVE Blaise’s family.  It’s one of the families that you just want to be a part of, not that I don’t love my family tons or anything.  They are just fun and loving (Blaise’s family – and my own, just so we are straight. :) )Tatum and Blaise have instant chemistry and the build up was amazing.  The supporting characters were a huge bonus to the story, between Blaise’s sister and his twin brother, his mother and father, Leah and her fiancé, all were integral, and all were wonderfully written.The only thing that bothered me was that there were times when Blaise was speaking where I was sitting there going I know not one guy who speaks like that, especially not a tough guy.  It felt more like what we females imagine in our heads a guy would say to us in a conversation verses how a man actually speaks, that and the “hey you” constantly were the downsides for me.  Ember’s conversations with her brother and about her brother were kind of out there too.  I have two brothers, both that I have been close to my entire life, one who I am extremely close to and I tell most of my life too, and I can’t imagine speaking to him or about him the way she did, he would die.  It was almost too sappy for me in those few moments.  In fact I remember one friend of my brother’s telling him his sister was hot and my brother just about kicked his a$$ saying, dude, that’s my sister.  I couldn’t imagine their girlfriends or now wives talking to me about some of that stuff and I consider one of them my best friend.  Maybe it is that way with other families, I can only relate it to what I live, what I have seen with my brothers.That being said there were some amazing moments, like the fireworks, their first time on the dance floor together that took me back to my late teens, early 20’s.  That building of anticipation, those moments where you are holding your breath wondering if they will move that final inch to touch you, to put their arms around you, to draw you to them.  I literally felt those feelings running through my own body while they were happening in the book.All in all, it was a great well written book about coming back, recovering, learning how to trust again, learning to live.  4 stars.Thank you so much for my copy of Tempting Tatum!