Review: The Plus One Chronicles... Complete Box Set
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 14, 2014
I contemplated giving this book series a four star rating instead of five stars because it irritated me that each separate book continues to the next book with a huge cliff hanger. The fact that you HAVE to read each book in order to reach the HEA was a huge turn off for me. Had I read this series as the author was releasing them and had to wait moths for the next book in the series I would have deducted points but as it was I purchased the box set and was able to read the entire set at once so for that reason and because the series was so good I decided not to deduct points.That said, here is my opinion on the book series, please note this review will include spoilers so if you haven't read the series please don't read any further.First off I loved the characters in this book series. I thought Jennifer Lyons did an awesome job developing each character. The growth of Kat's strength and confidence through-out the book series was wonderful. Sloane too was such a great well developed character, one that would make girls of all ages swoon. Even the secondary characters were nicely developed, I just loved Kel and Drake too.My favorite thing about this series is that we got a great love story. We got to see two soles who were both damaged (not broken) by events that took place in their lives and when they found each other, by just being themselves, were able to help the other heal. This series does contain some pretty graphic sex scenes and that may turn some off but for me I'm ok with the graphic content as long as we get a beautiful love story as well. Books that that are all about the sex with a loosely built story around it turns me off but this series was very well written. The over all theme of this book is trust. Kat learned to trust Sloane physically and emotionally and Sloane learned to trust Kat with his heart.A brief synopsis..Kat was "mugged" six years before, The assailants beat her with a baseball bat which left her with both mental and physical scars. She has a limp and scars to her right leg which she is extremely self conscience of. She also suffers from panic attacks that immobilize her.Sloane Is a former UFC fighter who now owns a chain of Gyms. He also is dedicated to the organization his mentor started getting teens off the street and giving them something positive to focus on, mainly UFC training. What Sloane doesn't do is relationships. After growing up with a mother who constantly put her relationships ahead of her kids Sloane doesn't have a positive view of women. All of his relationships are temporary and refereed to as Plus-Ones. They go to public functions with him and enjoy a physical relationship in return they get monetary compensation in the form of expensive gifts and help with launching or boosting their careers. The one thing that drives Sloane above all others is revenge. When he was sixteen his twin sister was murdered by Lee Foster who is recently released from prison. Now its time for Sloane to put into action what he's been training for for the past thirteen years, he's going to challenge Foster to a cage fight and Kill him.When Sloane meets Kat he is intrigued. He propositions her, she becomes his Plus-One and he will teach her Self defense so she can become empowered. She agrees and thus starts an amazing love story. It starts off as a business deal and becomes so much more. Their journey is quite beautiful.At one point toward the end (those who've read the series will know which part I'm referring to) I was crying so hard I had to put the book down several times. I got to know these characters so well I felt almost like it was my own loved one I was reading about.So, was the book perfect? No, but the imperfections were easily overlooked as the book series had just about everything a great romance should have.Here are a couple of the imperfections I noted..FYI; These are just my opinion an others may disagree..First; and this is just a nick-picky kind of thing but when Kat was agonizing over wearing a dress due to her scars I did wonder why she just didn't wear some dark nylons/hosiery under the dress.  Problem solved!Second;  And this one really irritated because it was the only part that seemed forced and didn't fit in how well the story was written. When Sloane's mother showed up at Kat's bakery without anyone's knowledge just so she could out Sloane's plan to kill Foster. I thought how is it possible that she could give her security detail the slip without being detected. Sloane mentioned several times how well she is protected that he didn't have to worry about Foster getting to her but yet she was able to fly from Florida without notice. And even worse, Sloane didn't even wonder how this happened.. The author obviously wanted us to know what a vile woman his mother was which was totally unnecessary as we already got that and Kat finding out about his plans from his mother in such a way wasn't in keeping with the rest of the book. IMO  If it was vital that Sloane's mother out Sloane's plan then she could have called Kat instead, at least that would have been more believable but better yet, Kat could have found out by overhearing a conversation between Sloane and Jake..Anyways,. Like I said the imperfections were small in comparison with the overall book series. The love and trust between these two shined through with plenty of heart warm tender moments. I loved the part when Kat begged Sloane to let her rescue herself from David and though Sloane wanted to be her night in shining armor he knew his damsel needed to be her own heroine. So, though he was sweating bullets he let her save herself and in doing so gave her the gift of herself.Do i recommend this series? that's a resounding yes!! 10000%