Review: Steamy, soft and sweet - Archer is EVERYTHING rolled into one filthy-mouthed bad-boy
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 6, 2014
Until You’re Mine is the second installment in the Mine Series by K. Langston.  I have been waiting for this book since getting a sneak peak of Archer and Katy in the first “Mine” book, but each book can be read as a stand-alone.  Oh, yes, we see Holden and Madison a bit, but Until You’re Mine really is all about Archer (and Katy).Katy insists that Archer has some “personality issues.”  Madison actually doubts Archer has one at all (book one).  Well, from where I’m sitting, nothing could be further from the truth.  Oh, he has a personality alright – a complex and frustrating one!  Oh, and he’s got a thing for Katy – the inked up, sassy mouthed cocktail waitress who actually makes Goodwill fashion work.  Yeah, and Katy’s definitely got a thing for Archer too.To call Katy’s character “unique” actually doesn’t do her justice.  Author K. Langston has created an authentic renaissance woman with Katy.  Raised as a PK (preacher’s kid), Katy is, at her very inner core, a good girl, but she has a healthy dose of rebel in her, and it’s the rebel that has Archer’s senses on high alert!  At one point, he compares her to his grandmother, but doesn’t hesitate to instigate her inner slut in the bedroom.  It’s usually the hero I call “enigmatic,” but I can think of no more appropriate word to describe our heroine.I don’t have a word for Archer – at least not an adequate one.  He has a foul temperament most of the time, and a foul mouth all of the time.  The man has the vocabulary of a well-educated sailor.  Challenging hardly begins to describe him.  Archer is still nursing some deep and painful wounds from a past he doesn’t talk about, and despite his fixation on Katy, Archer is determined to keep their relationship strictly sexual.  Well, let’s just see how that works out for him, shall we.Archer and Katy are the perfect blend of rough and soft, bitter and sweet.  Their story is both physically and emotionally erotic.  Yes, there was some predictability in the story, but there were also some plot twists that pleasantly surprised me too. There were many times when I wanted to just snatch Archer up by the collar and shake him for the way he treated Katy, and the things he said to her in an effort to keep her away.  But Katy’s love for him is unconditional, and it’s a love Archer has never known.  Yes they fight, but oh, how they make up!  Steamy?  Absolutely!  But it’s more than that.  It’s just the right combination of rough, soft and sweet – like toast with melted butter and honey – comforting and satisfying in equal measure.As I’ve come to expect from K. Langston, her attention to detail in the development of her characters is remarkable, right down to their vernacular, and the colloquialisms that I would expect to hear from people living in that part of the country.  I felt like I truly understood these characters and what made them tick.  I connected with them, and if you were to ask me about them, I could say “oh, Archer would never do that,” or “oh, yes, that’s definitely Katy.”  K. Langston continues to delight me with her storytelling, and she, once again, has created characters with the element of believability that had me emotionally responding as though they were real.Five steamy, soft and sweet stars!