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Review

Absolutely amazing! This was the first stand-alone book of KA’s that I’ve read, and it was a lot more emotionally intense than the other books of hers that I’ve read, but I still absolutely loved it. I’m beginning to think that KA is some sort of awesome-book-writing-cyborg because the woman can clearly do no wrong! I feel like I’m repeating myself every time I go to write a review for a KA book, so I’m attempting to keep this one brief.

Kia is a great heroine. She has been through hell, but is determined to pull herself out of it, and there wasn’t any of the ‘oh I’m so damaged’ drama that can get really annoying. She fell hard for Sam, didn’t play games and, even though she was madly in love with him, she was still prepared to stand up for herself and what she needed, and she absolutely called him on it when he didn’t give it to her. Woohoo! Gotta love a strong heroine!

Sam is totally swoony, as all KA Alphas are. To me he seemed like a real mix of the boys from her Dream Man series:
He’s a tough Commando who talks exactly like Hawk
He has the openness and honesty of Brock (for most of the story at least…)
And he is partial to long, emotional speeches like Mitch.

He seemed a bit uber-perfect there at the beginning. He was gracious, caring, generous, and an absolute gentleman who helped Kia recover from her traumatic past. Whenever Kia had a problem, he seemed to know exactly what was behind it and then said exactly the right thing in exactly the right way to get through to her at exactly the right time she needed to hear it. I found that I wanted him to do something wrong just to make him a bit more real. Eventually his demons showed themselves, and he displayed some jerk-like behaviour (some of it very seriously jerk-like). But when the resolution came, of course the reasons behind his behaviour were valid and absolutely forgivable (and actually made me a little weepy). And I loved that he was man enough to open up completely to Kia and show her that even though he’s a macho Badass, he was broken too, and he needed her. *SWOON!*

As is expected from Ms Ashley there’s lots of drama, swoony romance, steaminess, and more than a few laughs. The drunken conversation which begins – “My friend Teri has a life-size, cardboard cutout of you…” was brilliant and had me laughing out loud!!! The supporting characters were amazing as always. There was a big circle of friends and family who played huge and very important parts in the story, and I came to care for them all. There is also a very satisfying Epilogue which ties up all of the loose ends beautifully.

I could rant on and on, but am trying to contain the gushing. I have added heaps of quotes which are like a ‘highlight reel’ for the story – there’s so many of them because Kristen Ashley is just.that.good!

For more KA awesomeness, check out our Kristen Ashley Author Spotlight