Review: A whole different Beau!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 12, 2014
Complimentary copy provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.Beau Harris is pretty much everything you don’t want in a man all wrapped up in a hot package. He’s a shark; he’s ruthless at what he does and makes no apologies. He’s a serial womanizer who is only looking out for number one, himself.Or so we thought.Whitney is a dancer, preparing to tour with pop princess Vanessa Curtis as she heads out to promote her latest album. She’s also Vanessa’s little sister. She hasn’t seen Beau since she was just a teen, when Vanessa first signed with Beau, and Whitney was sent off to an exclusive boarding school in Europe. She’s heard the rumors of Beau’s manwhorish ways, but the Beau that she gets to know is nothing like that. Is Beau just behaving himself to get in Whitney’s pants? Or has he genuinely changed his ways, knowing that Whitney is the one for him?At the end of Natural Harmony I’ll be honest, I thought Beau was a serious a-hole. The way he treated and strung Sabrina along made me not like him a whole lot. By the end of Sway, jumpin’ Jesus on a pogo stick…my ovaries were ready burst and I was ready to profess my undying love for the man. Ms. Roth had taken Beau from a broken shell of a man, near the point of desperation, to a man that embodied love and fidelity. We see what happened in his past to make him the way he is, and see what has to happen in order to find the happiness that he once had.I loved Natural Harmony, the first book in this series. I wish I hadn’t used that term the first time around because it makes it all the harder to summarize my feelings for this book. I freaking LOVED this book. Ms. Roth writes romance, however she doesn’t let that label pigeonhole her; her books are so much more than just mere romances. Sway, in particular, pushes the boundaries of the average romance. Yes, we’re treated to some hot, sexy goodness; however, Ms. Roth takes on some hot topic issues, namely the May/December romance of Beau and Whitney, as well as the same-sex romance of another set of characters. What it all boils down to is that we’re all humans and we all deserve to find the love of someone. That love may look different from person to person, but we all deserve to be happy, regardless of what others may perceive is “right” or “proper”.While Sway is the second book in the series, it can be read as a standalone. I highly suggest reading Natural Harmony first though, as Sway will mean all the more to you. We see Beau in a completely different light and the way he’s able to interact with Sabrina and Wade just further exemplifies his metamorphosis.This was an easy five star read that I devoured in one sitting. It is well written and I’ve established that the characters are well developed and the storyline is engaging. This book will pull you in and you will feel all of those emotions of love. Loves lost, first loves, unrequited love, it’s all there.I think one of the reasons that I like Ms. Roth’s characters so much is that she is writing US. We can relate to her characters because any one of us could be her character. O.k., so we’re not pop stars or record executives, however we are people that find love in different places, in different ways. I mean, Beau is the hero and he’s graying and in his 40s. I have a husband like that, I can relate to that. I like escaping into books, but at the same time, it’s nice to see your life reflected back to you once in awhile. To think, “hey, my life’s not so bad!” As much as we’d all love to have our hot 25-year-old MMA fighter, or rock star, or our perfect dom, rarely is that in the cards. Beau Harris? Yeah, that could happen.