Rosalind JamesRecensioni
Autore di Just This Once (Escape to New Zealand, #1)
Recensioni
Fierce (Not Quite a Billionaire, #1; Escape to New… di Rosalind James
The teacher, Zoe Santangelo, is smart and funny and somewhat driven, the kind of person who has let her career aspirations guide her whole life. Cal Jackson is the local-boy-made-good in the NFL, where more than just his shoulder got busted up, and he’s now returned to the farmhouse his great-gran dad built and the town he grew up in. After a bit of a rocky start, Zoe and Cal start to click pretty nicely, and you get to enjoy their deepening relationship for a while, I don't want to go too much into the story line and ruin it for anyone so i will say this would be a great book to turn into a tv movie that you wont regret watching or reading.
mira and her boyfriend scott are competing in a reality show that puts people back in the days of the settlers. they have to do without all modern conveniences and put in their gardens, build corrals, etc. gabe and his twin brother are also competing. mira is hoping that she can get enthused about her job and her relationship with scott, who is very overbearing and obnoxious. scott sets out to make aliances and doesn't listen to what mira thinks about anybody in the competition. when the teams are split up and go to opposite camps, scott tells mira that she still has to work on the alliances that he wants, rather than listening to what mira thinks. as mira and gabe work side by side with the rest of their house, they get to know one another better. at the competitions, scott is revealed as an incompetent boor, and mira realizes that she is definitely better off away from him.
what i liked: i liked the descriptions of the settler's ways of life. they seemed to be very true to form. i also liked that, with the exception of the cameras, and one cell phone that was snuck in, there were no modern conveniences. i liked the build in relationship with not just between gabe and mira, but with all the members of the house. i liked how, once mira dumped scott, she and gabe managed some alone sexytimes. i also liked the competitions.
what i didn't like: that scott turned out to be such a psychopath. wasn't it enough just to have him be an ingnorant jerk?
2.75 Stars
1st the bad.
Was a bit long winded. Not really my cup of tea as far as excitement or pulling me into the story. A few editing problems, but not many. A little too SWEET for my taste.
2nd the good.
The writing was well done other than a bit too much detail on things that didn't really matter. But for those who love a "Sweet Romance" you will enjoy this book.
As for myself, not enough action. I prefer a book that has lots of different dimensions to it. This book did not have that.
Purchased from Amazon January 7, 2015
On the strength of this book I might go back and try some of the others in the series. Maybe the one I tried first was just not for me.
5 stars narration
I love this series, love the settings the people. the experience of being in Ms. James world. Her characters are always interesting, and good people. Her love on NZ shines through so well it's like being on a tour.
This one features an All Black player (drool) my personal team of choice and a ballet dancer. He is a family man caring for his sisters, brothers and more. She is a single mother, ex dancer, retired too early from her dancing career because of life's little road blocks.
When he buys the house she's renting part of for his huge family and needs her to move, they get to know each other and develop a slow and difficult relationship till.
I'm not going to tell you more. There is a fabulous HEA, loads of fun, intense moments and some smexy times. Enjoy
The first book in Rosalind James Escape to New Zealand series, "Just This Once" is the first book in the series and I thought was a really steamy romance novel that evoked the older romance genre books that many still love.
Our heroine, Hannah Montgomery, goes to New Zealand for three weeks to figure out what she wants to do next. While there, she meets a professional rugby player, Drew Callahan. Hannah and Drew just fit together to me and their love scenes (when they happened) made me blush...a lot. I thought it was very realistic and quite open about two people who were deeply attracted to one another and their relationship trajectory made a lot of sense to me. Nothing was magically fixed, everything took work. What really made me love this book was that it took place in a country and city I have never been to and would have not thought a romance taking place there would work, but it did. I thought Ms. James did an excellent job describing the history of the New Zealand, the intricacies of rugby, and the Maori culture.
All in all a wonderful romance read! Cannot wait to read book two in this series!
Please note that I received this novel for free via the Amazon Kindle Lending Library.
In Rosalind James's second novel, "Just Good Friends: Escape to New Zealand Book Two, features two characters, Kate Lamonica and Koti James.
Kate has fled from the U.S. to New Zealand due to an obsessive ex-boyfriend who would not stop stalking her. Koti is a Maori rugby player playing for the All Blacks. It was really interesting to read about the Maori culture and to have that play a factor in this novel with Koti explaining this side of himself to Kate.
What I thought was very good and interesting is that you do have Kate having some problems initially with trusting Koti due to her last relationship. The two start off as friends and then you get to see their friendship change into something more. I honestly bought their relationship and loved how you did not just have the two romantic leads falling in love with each other after only one day. I will admit at times Kate was hard to like. However, in the end both characters won me completely over.
Also the love scenes once again were smoking. I think most romance reads for the most part are somewhat vanilla when they write love scenes, which is alright. I just love the fact that Rosalind James keeps evoking older romance novels in my mind with how explicit she is when the two main leads have sex with each other.
We have a welcome appearance by Hannah and Drew from "Just This Once" and we get to catch up with this twosome to see how Hannah is liking and settling in living in New Zealand. Even though I only had the first two novels on my to be read pile for 2014 I still plan on continuing with this series.
For me this book was just more of the same. When I say that though I mean that in an entirely good way. We still have characters we can relate to and a slow steamy build-up to the romance between Jenna and Finn. The love scenes like in previous books is more explicit than most mainstream romances these days. However, I really like that and didn't have a problem with it.
Ms. James continues to keep the story-line moving and I was happy to see that there was a realistic build-up to the romance between Jenna and Finn. I hate romances that have the two leads falling in love at first glance. Or the two people are completely ill-suited to one another but have a chemistry they cannot deny (you can't see me but I am rolling my eyes right now). There was also some tension in the story due to Jenna's position and past concerning her husband. I was glad to see that not everything was just smooth sailing and red hot sex.
Please note that I downloaded this book through Amazon's Kindle Unlimited.
Rosalind James wrote a novella depicting how the two came to meet each other and eventually marry in this novella. The main reason why I gave this only four stars even though I loved the storyline was there was no real tension. We already know that Hemi and Reka are a couple so having there be angst between them doesn't really cause me as reader to get all worked up and hope they work things out. I already know they work things out. It was great to read a romance featuring a Maori couple and you get to read how important it was to them both to be near their family and how important their culture was to them.
This novella starts 6 years before book one so we do get some look at characters like Drew but once again I have to say since we already know what becomes of him it didn't really reveal anything interesting.
When the book starts we have Hemi just floating around acting like Leonardo DiCaprio around Victoria Secret models (i.e. like a kid in a candy store). Hemi runs into Reka and realizes that he had a fling with Reka a year ago at a wedding and would like to get reacquainted. Reka of course is not enthused with Hemi doing his best to act cajole her into getting together just for fun.
As I said earlier what I really like reading about is the Maori culture, how important family is to them and how most things center around their families. All in all this was a fairly quick and enjoyable romance read.
I loved/liked most of the Escape to New Zealand series though I did have issues with two of the books. This one from beginning to end didn't make a lot of sense, there was no chemistry between the hero/heroine and, even after it comes out that what is going on could cause the hero to lose his position, the heroine keeps doing it!
I was over everyone by the time we got to the end of the book.
The hero of the book, Will Tawera, is on vacation in Las Vegas visiting one of his friends. Will's friend has an opportunity to model for the cover of some erotic books and goes to the shoot. Instead of Will's friend getting picked, Will is instead chosen as the hero for the covers and though he knows that if it gets back to New Zealand he could be in very hot water for disgracing this jersey since he is a member of the All Blacks (New Zealand rugby team). It makes absolutely no sense during the story that Will goes along with this except he finds himself attracted to the photographer's assistant Faith Goodwin. We have a really long explanation that the shots are going to be used for a website where people can read erotica and submit their own stories in order to win a huge cash prize. Faith starts to secretly write her own story for the site and that is the catalyst that causes it to come out that Will modeled for the covers. Instead of Will having any sort of sense and explaining what he was doing, he instead decides to lie that he did this for his girlfriend (Faith) and begs Faith to come to New Zealand and lie about their relationship to his family and friends.
I seriously lost several brain cells while reading this book. And yes I did go get some wine. I have no shame that I needed two glasses to get through this book.
Will and Faith have absolutely no chemistry at all. Every scene was supposedly them dealing with sexual tension and I just was not feeling/seeing it at all.
Will and his family had huge problems and I wish that we had time to focus more on them since they were tons more interesting than Faith or Will. Faith irked me from beginning to end in this book. She starts to secretly write a romance novel
We had some reappearance of previous characters in this book and honestly all that did was make me wish that I was re-reading those books and not this one.
The writing was choppy and not very good in this book. I think because we also had Faith's writing (she apparently was writing a romance book and imagining Will as the hero) interspersed in places and it made everything slow down. I really with that had been taken out of the final book because these little asides to her daydreaming/writing was just not great. The flow wasn't great and believe me when you get to the end things are kind of hand waved away though through the whole book we are told over and over again how what has happened is a very big deal. Apparently it is not a big deal once you are in love with each other.
The prologue shows a college girl named Amy driving and realizing that she is being followed by someone in a truck. She's scared and runs into a store and hides. We change perspective and realize that Amy was right to be scared because someone is stalking her and means to rape her.
From there we transition to chapter 1, named "In the Ditch". We have college professor Zoe Santangelo who is on her way to teach her class. She hits black ice and ends up in a ditch. A strange men pops up at her door and acts like an ass when she doesn't roll down her window right away and rebuffs his offer of help and instead reaches out to Triple A. Then a cop shows up and tells her she should let the stranger help her (his name is Cal) and takes off.
I am going to tell you right now, this probably was not a good book for me to read in my current mindset. There is a lot of not all men crap happening throughout this book that ticked me off and there is a lot of stupid stereotypes revolving "geeks" and "jocks". The topic of rape comes up a lot, and also consent, and oh how Zoe needs to just give up her dream because Cal wants to marry her and have kids and acts like the whiniest thing that ever lived when she doesn't fall all over herself to do what he wants.
Oh, I hated Cal. I should say that right up front.
This book goes back and forth between Amy (college student), Zoe, Cal, and the rapist's points of view. This book is listed as romantic suspense, but no, there was very little romance in it. And when the topic of rape is in a book, it didn't make me all warm and fuzzy about Cal and Zoe either. I think that Rosalind James wanted it both ways, but it didn't really work as a romance novel at all.
I wish we had stayed with Amy more in this book because she trusts her feelings that something is not quite right and feels more and more like someone is watching her. I totally cheered when James wrote the scene where Amy got the upper hand on the rapist and loved it even more when she realized her boyfriend who was not supporting her, was not the guy for her.
I liked Zoe a lot. She is a no nonsense geology professor specializing in water found in rocks. Her dream is to teach in Paradise, Idaho for a few years and go to a big research college like UCLA one day. She has divorced parents that I really didn't get too big a handle on except her father is a cold fish and her mother is a hopeless romantic. When Zoe first meets Cal she is justifiable standoffish because hey she's a woman on the side of the road with a guy she doesn't know. I have never rooted against a guy so hard while reading a book, but I did root against Cal.
Cal sucked. He is a former football player, turned farmer who is still nursing his wounds from his ex wife cheating on him and then leaving him for one of his teammates. Cal is offended that Zoe doesn't trust him right away and that she is suspicious of him. He makes a quip about how safe Paradise is and then we of course go to Amy and her stalking so I think that was James way of showing how foolish he is, but seriously. He does a whole He-Man will protect his woman thing when he and Zoe get together (of course they do) and he realizes she may be in danger. And I hate how he talks about how he hates how she dresses all of the time. It wasn't cute. He wants her to dress sexy and if she was doing it for her then I would have been okay with it. But there is a scene where he picks out a dress for her to wear when they go out (he buys it without her permission) that made me want to stab that guy in his neck a thousand times.
We have some secondary characters I am sure going to be the characters in book #2, but I am not going to get into them here because I am not reading book #2.
The writing wasn't that great. I think I was supposed to be thinking how cute and sexy Cal was but all I thought was what a jerk he was always. I liked reading about geology and I liked how Zoe taught. But I did hate one of her lectures about geeks growing up to be beautiful, wonderful, smart, and rich. So if these kids don't end up like that, they are failures? She sets up this geeks versus jocks thing that doesn't work. And we also have thrown in how a jock frat boy raped her college roommate and friend so that is supposed to show why Zoe hates all jocks? I don't know, it didn't make sense to me. I think it should have shown why Zoe was careful around men and even though she got not all men do that, she was still careful to ensure that she was safe.
Also there is some crap from Cal about when you die that your tomb says what's most important about you so he seriously says to Zoe that beloved wife and mother is most important. I literally screamed so if I am not married or have kids screw me then? He sucks.
The flow was awful throughout this book. I think because we had so many POVs we were flashing to. Also you had to not paid attention at all to not realize who the rapist is. I was the least surprised person ever.
The setting of Paradise never comes alive for me at all like New Zealand did for me. There didn't seem to be a lot to do besides drinking and going to a bar, or going to someone's home.
The ending sets up a HEA that I honestly wish didn't occur. I think it would have been better for the couple to realize that Zoe's dream was still valid and she could still take a couple of years to go to a bigger school and achieve her dream. Instead the whole book was about her turning from what her father wanted for her for years to turning to what Cal wanted. Didn't seem like a step up to me at all.
Eh. That's all I really have to say about this newest edition to the Escape to New Zealand book. This book missed for me due to lack of chemistry and dialogue between the two leads (Chloe and Kevin). James does a good job with the initial set-up, but then the book just flounders right before it runs into a straight out of Melrose Place plot-line. There were some bits here and there that are classic James that I liked. But I think due to the just okay leads and the terrible ass parents and ex (Chloe's ex) I just wanted this book to be over as soon as possible. Also there was a sub-plot involving Kevin's twin sisters and just no. No a thousand times. It messed up the whole rhythm of the book and I felt like they both were being set up to be the focus of future books.
The book starts off with Chloe Davidson standing by to watch her best friend Josie (Just Not Mine, Escape to New Zealand #6) getting married. I think this initially is what caused some of my confusion. This is book #10 in the series, and I honestly haven't thought too much about Josie and Hugh since then. So to get thrown back to that book and trying to remember who Chloe is and her connection to Josie didn't quite work. And from there we have Chloe going into another flashback involving what should have been her wedding day. Now here James does sing. I get Chloe's heartbreak and rightful anger at being dumped (while pregnant) at the altar. From that moment on, Chloe decides she will do whatever it takes to keep her son Zavy safe. That means that Chloe gives up on her dreams to go back to dancing ballet. Instead she opens a ballet school.
Kevin McNicholl plays for the New Zealand All Blacks. A big, strong, red-headed man, his primary focus is rugby, his teammate, and his family. His mind has been on Chloe though since he first saw her more than a year ago when she was having lunch with his teammate. Then again when he saw her at Josie and Hugh's wedding. Now he decides he is going to do whatever it takes to get Chloe to "take him on." Blech. Look, Kevin does grow on me. But the way he is introduced is kind of a mess. He's Chloe's new landlord, and shows up at her school and kicks her out. But also wants to go on a date.
Who does that? Seriously. That was one of the main reasons why I initially not feeling this book. It doesn't help though that James expects readers to remember that somehow these two saw each other 4 books ago either. Both characters recall seeing the other one and feeling something and it doesn't feel organic at all. I honestly didn't get their pull or attraction throughout the entire book. At least the romance scenes were great and I did enjoy seeing how Chloe's son Zavy was incorporated.
Secondary characters don't really work in this one. Chloe's parents pretty much sucked. Her mother being overbearing and deciding she would sneak Chloe's son off to see his real father was pretty awful. I did like we get to see Chloe growing up and standing up to her parents about her needs though. But seriously, she's 30, that should have been a conversation way before now. If she was younger I could see how this dynamic worked a bit better. It just didn't feel real to me since I can't see how anyone at the age of 30 would be getting bossed by their parents so much.
Chloe's ex rich was superficially developed. We needed a bad guy, so here is one. Towards the end with the final great Rich is a really terrible person act I just couldn't buy it.
Kevin's family was pretty bland for the most part. Due to his twin sisters (Noelle and Holly) living with him though we see them up close and personal. I really wish that James had not included them. I don't even understand what the hell was going on for the most part between the two of them. And Chloe at times seems cold since she doesn't want to deal with their brat like behavior towards each other either.
The plot was really about these two people falling in love. The sub-plots dealing with Chloe and her terrible ex, and the twins shake-up among each other were just okay. Maybe if the twins sub-plot were left out things would have worked better. At least the flow improved when it was just Chloe, Kevin, and Zavy. The other stuff thrown in just made the whole book jumbled. James usually does a better job than this with this series so I was surprised. The writing was good. I am used to the Kiwi words/sayings that James uses in her books. Can I say though that I am not a fan of the chapter headings and the heart doodle that accompanied the headings either. I maybe mumbled some bad swear words after a while.
I miss the love of New Zealand that usually comes shining through in these books too. It didn't feel like the action moved much beyond Kevin and Chloe's places and Chloe's school. I fell in love with this series a couple of years ago. Most of the latter books have been hit or miss with me. So this one I am going to count as a miss too.
Premise is that this book follows a New Zealand Mr. Grey (Hemi) coming along and deciding that he is going to (swear word) a woman (Hope) that he meets when he goes to see a photo shoot set up.
James can usually turn a phrase and make me see her characters, but I had a hard time even picturing this whole thing. She tried to turn her New Zealand characters into Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele and it did not work at all.
The little we find out about Hope is that she is struggling to make things work for her and her teenage sister. They are sharing a tiny place in New York (I think it's a studio) and she's working for an insane photographer. When she meets Hemi she feels intrigued by him and he weirdly decides he is going to have to have her. Cause that's what doms do I guess (I have no idea). Hemi arranges things so that Hope gets a job at his company and from there he is going to make sure that she eventually gives into him (barf).
Hemi is crude and sorry not sexy at all to me. I was done after he propositions Hope in his office and she rightfully slaps him. Of course James has Hope thinking to herself that she could not helped being turned on by the whole thing and I just quit this book at this point. I just got frustrated because a scene before this Hemi tries to force Hope into going out to dinner with him and she says no to that. He even tries to force her to go overseas on an assignment even after she explains why she can't (her sister being left alone is a huge problem). So he's not exactly blowing my socks off with empathy.
I would recommend passing on this one.
"Just Stop Me" has fashion model Nina Jones on the run. Nina is engaged a prince, but realizes days before her wedding, he and the royal life is not what she's looking for. When she tries to object to getting married to her fiance, he refuses to allow her time to wait to think on the marriage. Nina escapes though and ends up in New Zealand. Arriving there, she gets taken in by Iain McMormick's mother who thinks she would be a good caretaker for her father/his grandfather. Iain though is suspicious of Nina and is still reeling from an upset he had months earlier (no spoilers).
I really loved Nina's backstory. It takes a while to get there though, but you realize she's been in the public spotlight for years and she's had little say of her personal or professional life. Running off to New Zealand leaves her feeling free and brave.
Iain made me feel so sorry for him (no spoilers). It also doesn't help that he realizes something is going on with his parents. Three cheers for James for showing an older couple finding their way back to each other! Yes, older people need and love too.
The rugby aspect in this one is pushed back though a lot until we get to maybe the 50 percent mark. I can't even recall right now. But for the first half is just Nina and Iain together at his parents/grandparents place.
The writing is typical James, we get some red hot love scenes that had me sighing with pleasure while flying. The guy next to me was trying to be nosy, but I lifted my Kindle away from his nosy self.
This was also a great update on previous characters. One of the reasons why this series is that James revisits older characters, it's great to see how those people's Happily Ever Afters are working out. Though I notice she stays away from Alison and Toro though (I don't think any readers liked them much).
The ending hits more on the romantic suspense elements which I didn't really think worked much. In fact that is what didn't work for me. I loved Nina asserting her independence, but the evil prince thing was too much Disney prince nonsense for me to really care about while reading.
"Just Say (Hell) No" follows Marko Sendoa who is a rugby flanker. He gets in a spot of trouble and is told by the rugby team's PR manager that he needs some positive press. This has him doing some photography at the local ASPCA where he poses with the world's cutest freaking kitten and finds himself with a new cat (Cat Cat) who loves to climb and ride his shoulder. Marko runs into Nyree who he already had his somewhat earlier meet-cute with. Too bad Nyree wasn't interested. And now that Nyree is on tap to photograph Marko and some of our fellow All Black players (yes we get some updates, nope won't tell you who!) making appearances. What Marko doesn't know is that he and Nyree do have a past, he just doesn't remember it.
I loved watching Nyree dance around her feelings for Marko. Her family life though does impact her a lot. Her mother and stepfather are jerks. I got no other words for it. Her stepbrother didn't sound too hot either (it takes two more books to revisit him). I loved Nyree's passion for her art and realizing that she may not make it, but wanting to go for it anymore.
Marko has a loving family, though slightly crazy at times. When his cousin runs away to him since she is pregnant and her mother is losing it, he agrees to take her in until the baby is born. I thought Ella's maturity about realizing she was an unwed mother, and not ready to be a mother was wonderful. I also loved how this tied into an earlier book and how wonderfully everything worked out.
The love scenes were HOT HOT HOT. And I have to say Cat Cat's love for Marko had me giggling and laughing.
The ending was really good and sad at times, but it worked for me.
David I considered a terrible man and an even worse King when you get down to it, but hey he couldn't help it, cause a woman drove him to it (I am giving this sentence stabby eyes).
Anyway, back to the book, Rhys story-line was interesting, but the whole secret child (but not really) thing didn't work. It was dumb and made zero sense. And Zora started working my nerves. I guess I wanted her to be more independent, she seemed so unprepared by things. Her son and her brother were my favorites though. Hayden (her brother) I think saw a lot and was finally pushing her to actually stand up to their parents. This and the last book had some very terrible parents, and the next book doubles down on it. So there's that. The romance part I didn't care about, I just rushed through most of this book honestly.
This book really missed a lot of things I think. I wish that there had been more honest conversations about what a terrible father, brother, husband Dylan was. Speaking ill of the dead isn't an issue with me if it's accurate.
The writing wasn't there for me or the flow. I think the book just dragged a lot. And after a while I started wondering if Rhys was a freaking billionaire based on what he was buying and doing. And his whole He-Man thing about getting married and having Zora pregnant with his baby (gagging noise). I just think that James went too alpha for me with the hero. Usually her rugby heroes are three dimensional, and I didn't find Rhys to be all of that after a while.
The ending didn't do much for me, but you know, epic review coming cause of the next book in the series.
Yeah. I am ticked. I told my friend about this book while reading it in Honduras. He's gay and he said he still doesn't get why books and even movies still dance away from showing gay men in love. We still seem okay with women, and that's usually because of the whole male gaze and most of them imagining themselves with the women. I think she shortchanged the two characters in this one (Hayden and Luke) and it just made their "romance" look beyond ridiculous when we didn't see it, but hear about it vaguely, and then love happened (over a freaking two day period I think).
The other romances didn't do well either. We have Nyree's friend Victoria with her other brother Kane and their romance. And then James dumps in other couples over the previous series (we get Zora and Rhys again and then Nyree and Marko again (seriously why?) and then Kevin and Chloe. We also get appearances by Koti, Kate, Finn, Jenna, and just freaking mostly everyone. This should have either have been Victoria and Kane's book with Nyree's wedding as a backdrop or better yet Hayden and Luke's book.
I think that ultimately this one was a wrap up for the series and was too rushed. Too many characters, too much jumping around, and too many plots to get invested in to get pushed out on to move on to the next one. I couldn't even get emotional about Nyree and Marko's updates and wedding.
James also needs to decide what's she's going to do about Nyree's mother and stepfather, he's terrible and apparently homophobic but it's brushed aside and I was left wondering what the heck was going on. Rhys mono-longing about things got old. I don't care what he thinks about Luke and Hayden.
The writing didn't work as I said or the flow because we jumped around too much and were given at times life changing news every five seconds. I think James was modeling this on her book, where she showed updates to her characters in one book, that one worked a lot better than this one though.
The ending was a miss with me. Probably because you have some characters doing 180 on things, and then the big bad secret that Rhys was keeping was just found out in like 5 seconds. And I swear every five minutes some big hard man was crying which I guess I was supposed to be all how can a hard and tough man cry. Lord. I miss Cat Cat. That's all I got.
"Hold Me Close" is part of James romantic suspense books. I didn't much care for the first book, and this second one ran to good to meh to me as well. Still deciding about reading the next two books in the series or just passing on that. Back to this book. We have Kayla Chambers who after being hit again by her boyfriend, goes on the run with her son when he drops them off at the laundromat. We find out that Kayla has reached out to a domestic violence organization, and she's going to leave her life behind and start over again in the town of Paradise, Idaho that she has fond memories of as a child.
Luke Jackson has a FWB situation finally ending and realizes that his new neighbor may be the answer. He quickly realizes that Kayla and her son Eli don't need a pass through the night man, they need a solid person to be there. He quickly pushes (slightly) into helping them when he can and hanging back and not trying to do more than that with either of them.
We get reappearances by former characters and of course set up for the focus of the next book in this one.
The writing was good. We get POVs from Eli, Luke, Kayla, and even Kayla's abusive ex. I think that James did a good juggling all of those voices and showing Kayla's ex obsession with her and punishing her for daring to go against him. The guy gave me chills.
The flow though was a bit off jumping around like that. I didn't think at times that Eli's voice was authentic.
The setting of Paradise is hard to picture. It seems like a teeny tiny town, but at other times it sounds quite large. There are discussions about the hard times the farmers are going through so it touches upon real world events at times here and there.
The ending though was very well done. Except for the whole murder plot line. I wish that had been resolved. It was such a weird thread to leave hanging.
This book actually deals with two couples not just one.
The A couple so to speak is about Nate Torrance (the new captain of the All Blacks) and Allison Villiers (who is working at a gym as a rock climber instructor when she meets Nate).
The B couple is about Allison's best friend Kristen (sister of Hannah from Just This Once) and Liam (a player on the All Blacks).
The main issue is that I really didn't like Nate or Allison. Nate was pig headed and thoughtless and was looking to just have sex with no strings. Fine, we all are used to those romance plots where the guy just treats the woman like a bit of fun until he magically realizes he has feelings. The problem was I never got that Nate really did have feelings for Allison besides liking to have sex with her. All these two people ever really did was argue, fight, makeup, have sex. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Having great sex with someone does not automatically equal a great relationship. Heck I would have thought it would have been cooler to just have these two characters go their separate ways and follow up with them in a subsequent book after a while. I really wish that if authors are going to write series they don't automatically have to have two characters ride off into the sunset together. It's quite alright to have them both be mature adults that realize, heck, this isn't going to work. And you can revisit them in later books.
I also found Allison was also quite hard to like. I thought she was just as rude about Nate as he was about her and I guess I was supposed to feel sorry for her that Nate didn't love her the way she loved him but honestly I was just exhausted by both of them.
There is another plot thrown in about Allison and another character which I don't think that Ms. James meant to have come across as slut shaming, but that was the unfortunate result. There could have been a different way to tackle what happened but it just felt so off-side I don't know what else to say. It left a pretty bad taste in my mouth in the end and I just couldn't get on board with any happily ever afters.
The B couple which is Kristen (so beautiful that mere women are blinded by her beauty) and Liam also didn't click with me. We find out that Kristen has crippling shyness and has panic attacks but also somehow is able to fully function in society without anyone ever noticing really besides Liam. And yes you read that right, no one in Kristen's life realizes that she has panic attacks around strangers, some random guy she sees again at a party notices.
Question? When did it become the new thing in romance books to write women with panic attacks or problems socializing only occasionally and still able to function in society? I wish if authors actually want to show something new in romance books actually have a character with an actual disability and don't shy away from it.
One good thing I will say is that the chemistry between Liam and Kristen was much more believable though. I found it a bit boring since these two never do ever get any sex scenes because Kristen is giving herself a year to be by herself before she gets involved with any other man.
I have to say that this book and Just for Fun were my least favorite of this series. I did love book number 6 and the novella Just for You.
This book focuses on Hugh Latimer who finds himself drawn to his next door neighbor Josie Pae Ata.
Josie is a rising star in Australia and New Zealand though she wishes to try her hand at doing something else then always playing the cheating scheming man eater she does on television. Hugh plays rugby for the All Blacks. We do have some old favorites of the series show up in this book like Koti but for the most part the story stuck with Hugh and Josie.
Things I really liked about this book is that we have the heroine in this book portrayed as Maori. It was really interesting to read things about the culture from a woman's point of view. Also we get Josie actually in a relationship that she has no intention of ending just because she finds herself a teensy bit attracted to Hugh (hence the title).
The character of Hugh was also interesting since we have him raising his half brother and sister after dealing with the fallout from his father and stepmother's accidental deaths. You can see Hugh doing things wrong and feeling overwhelmed by everything he is supposed to be doing and left on his own by his aunt that pretty much left him holding the bag with his brother and sister.
The love scenes were fine to me in this one. The book showcases Ms. James usual display of hot and raunchy with sweetness. However, this time I was more interested in what was going on between the two characters when they were not in bed. Next to Hannah and Drew I thought that Hugh and Josie were fantastic characters that ended up being quite memorable to me.
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