Review: Liked it but....
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 16, 2013
I loved Shine not Burn. Strong female and male characters are important to me. Shine not burn is a strong book and Mac is my kind of cowboy (and I don't usually go for cowboys). I had extremely high hopes for By Degrees, especially when I read the synopsis online. (I follow Elle Casey on Facebook.)The story is good, but I may be a little bit burned out on the troubled rockstar kick because I just finished a two part series on one a few weeks ago.I liked Scarlette. She is kick ass, but her mental breakdown towards the head kind of threw me. I know us girls all have our weak moments, but come on? Two weeks in bed?I couldn't connect with Tarin very well, which might have been a bit of a drawback for me. In Elle's other book Shine Not Burn I connected so deeply with Mac that I found myself crying when I thought he was going to be kicked to the curb. Here? Not so much with By Degrees. I almost caught myself rooting for Scarlette to end up with Jack, which would have been a nice surprise.The ending? Well, I didn't love it and I didn't hate it. I feel like maybe there should have been more backstory with Tarin and why he chose to raise Jelly's baby. Why the about face? I know he was working on it before and during his tour, but that's a pretty big leap.All in all, I'd recommend it to someone else. But for me, I read so many novels that some of them blend together. I probably won't be able to tell this from the next within a few weeks. Doesn't mean I won't look for Elle Casey's next book, she's an extremely talented author. I just happened to not like these characters too much. Would I read it again? Maybe. Is it worth a few hours of your time and $4? Most definitely. Will it reach the top like Shine Not Burn? I don't think so. My reasoning for that? Well, nothing beats Mac, a cowboy that's hot and makes steamy love to a woman in the shower while saying to her You.Are.My.Wife.