Review: Favorite book of the year so far!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 1, 2011
My Review:You know how there are some books that speak to your heart on every level? This book was one of those for me. It was just so fabulously beautiful. It's emotional. It's funny. It's hearbreaking. It's undeniably romantic. There's no way that I can do this book just with this revew, but I am sure going to try because this is a book that you need to read- you will never look at canned peach halves the same way again. hehe...Charlie and Bastion have been friends (best friends) for six years. They share everything with each other except for sex. Bastion is an ER doctor and Charlie is a late-night radio dj. Three times a week, they host a radio talk show called "Let's Talk About Sex" as Dr. Hot and Honeypot together where they discuss all aspects of se. Bastion offers sound medical information and Charlie offer sex-kitten insight.The book opens with them by the campfire on a camping trip discussing all kinds of things. Charlie mentions that she has no secrets from Bastion. Something crosses his face and she realizes that he's hiding something from her. She insists that he share and he finally gives in and admits that he's in love with her. She does not react well to his declaration.Charlie has a complicated relationship with sex. Ever since she hit puberty, she has had the look of a sex-kitten and men have wanted one thing from her- to use her body. She uses sex as her shield and as a weapon to hide herself from others. To her mind, when Bastion says he loves and wants her, she sees it as the loss of her best friends because she just became important only for her body. It's a heartbreaking mentality and was the most difficult aspect of this book to me because she could not see past that. She has so much scar tissue built up around her heart when it comes to sex and loving relationships, Bastion has his world cut out for him to break through all that.Gah, this book is so good! Bastion is trying to convince Charlie to marry him and knowing how she feels about what sex would do their relationship, has refused to sleep with her until she says, "Yes." Things get significantly hotter when their debate hits the airwaves of their radio show and the challenge goes public as "To Bed or Wed." Their radio show is awesome. You get to see a lot of the on-air banter through the book with it's MANY giggle-worthy moments. Regardless of their differences of opinion, these are two people that are perfect for each other and as the reader, you can see that in every interaction, even though there were times when you wanted to knock one or both of them upside their heads.As Bastion romances Charlie, I fell a little bit more and more in love with his character. He's an amazing character- so real with flaws, but his love for Charlie shines through it all and just made my heart go pitter-pat. There's a point in the book where his self-sacrifice simply left me sobbing. Such an amazing twist to the story.On the other side is Charlie. She has such a tough facade, but on the inside she's a marshmellow. Her inability to see Bastion's love for her as what it was, broke my heart, but I loved her sassy sexy ways. Her quick quips and comebacks both on the radio and off left me giggling throughout the entire book. And the grading scale for heartbreak via ice cream flavors...priceless!!The most surprising character to me in this book was Caz (Bastion's brother.) OMG, so much talent and heartbreak wrapped into a single sexy tattooed package. Does Inez Kelley write sequels for follow-up characters?!?! OMG, I would LOVE to read Caz's story and find his HEA. He needs a good HEA. My heart just shuddered every time he was in a scene- such a wounded soul.Has it worked? Have I convinced you that you need to read this book? If you like it even 1/2 as much as I did, you will not regret the time to read this one. Just a wonderful read! I am pretty sure that this one will make my Top 10 for the year.ETA: I just heard from Ms. Kelley...Caz will be featured in a short story that should be up on her blog today. Also @DrHotBastion and @HoneyPotCharlie can be found on Twitter and will be on the Carina Press blog on August 3rd.