Review: Nash (Marked Men, #4) by Jay Crownover

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Review

4 ‘For the love of Nash’ stars

Just when I think I’ve met my favourite Marked Man, along comes another book and I fall madly in love all over again. This time, it’s Nash Donovan – tattooed, pierced, sexy as all hell and an absolute sweetheart. What’s not to love?

“A superhot, supersexy nice guy. Do you know how rare that is? He’s like a goddamn unicorn.”

And it’s just as well he’s such a stellar specimen, because his heroine is challenging to say the least! Saint Ford is an ER Nurse. We met her in the last book of the series, Rome, and we could already see some serious sparks between her and Nash, but now we get down to the nitty gritty.

Saint and Nash went to high school together. Nash was gorgeous even back then, and was popular and effortlessly cool. Saint was the awkward girl – shy and nerdy, a little bit overweight, and with a face full of acne. She had a huge crush on Nash but pretty much zero confidence, and when Nash was nice to her and started to show her attention, she was hopeful of something good happening for her. But misunderstandings shot Saint down and smashed her confidence to pieces. Eight years later and she still hasn’t recovered, and though she’s achieved success in her career, her self esteem is still in the toilet, and she has closed herself off to pretty much everyone except her family.

People could only hurt you and disappoint you if you let them. They only had the power to hurt you in you thought they were special and above that. I didn’t let anyone touch my heart or emotions enough to risk that happening again… ever.

And then an adult Nash Donovan enters her life. He is reeling from a personal tragedy, and she is there to support him through it. She feels for him, but it’s more than just that. She still finds him gorgeous of course, and from a grown up perspective, her hormones are reeling more than they ever have. But when Nash shows interest in her, it confuses her more than ever as he is the grown-up version of the boy who caused her so much pain. What she perceived as his dismissal of her marked her for life, and she doesn’t think she can trust him. But that doesn’t diminish their chemistry.

Nash remembers Saint from high school and he liked her back then, but he can’t get the grown-up Saint out of his head and he goes all out to pursue her. He is going through a lot personally, and Saint is there for him to lean on, showing her caring, compassionate nature and that is exactly what he needs. And each time they see each other, it becomes clear that they have a connection and they both want each other, but Saint has issues, and right when things start to happen, she runs.

I need to stop right here and have a rant because OMG, Saint, get over yourself! I understand how deeply hurtful words can be, and I understand how events in your teen years can hugely impact who you are as an adult, but she completely misconstrued everything that happened in the past and held on to it for years to fuel her little pity party. And then to continuously hold it again Nash rather than just moving on, or even talking to him about it… WTF? I understand low self esteem, I wasn’t the most confident of people growing up either, but Saint’s issues get just a little too much to take. Her constant self-doubt and subsequent back and forth is so freaking annoying, but it does give Nash a chance to shine, and OMG, he is amazing!

“All I can see is you. Why can’t you understand that? No one shines as bright as you in the sky I’m looking at. To me there is no sun, no moon, and no stars in the sky, just endless miles of storm clouds and pretty, pretty gray.”

He is sweet and gentle with her, and effortlessly patient. She treats him badly and hides so much of herself away, never really letting go with him, but he’s always there for her, always trying to get through to her how much he likes her, how special she is, and how much he wants to explore something with her – and their physical connection is undeniable! And still, she pushes him away over and over again, and even when things start to get a bit more serious between them, she’s so quick to judge and assume the worst. My heart broke for Nash over and over. The poor guy has SO much going on and he has to put up with this kind of crap from her? Not cool! He is clearly a better person than I am for not only putting up with it, but accepting Saint for all that she is, and falling for her even with all of her emotional baggage.

“You undo me, Saint.”
“I’m sorry.”
He sighed and rolled over so that he could pull me on top of his chest. “Just try and put me back together when you’re done with me, all right?”

There’s a lot of back and forth – way more than I like in my books – and Saint’s journey to move on from the past and discover her self-worth is really freaking slow, but there is light at the end of the tunnel! She FINALLY has her epiphany and starts to realise all that she is throwing away by being a complete idiot, and from there things start to get SO much better. And she is able to be there for Nash when he really needs her,

Nash wanted to live a life with no regrets. I wanted to live a life that was fulfilled. We needed each other to accomplish that.

So this one was a bit of a mixed bag – parts of it I loved, parts of it drove me nuts. There’s some great story progression with the rest of the characters with some pretty significant events happening in this one, and I loved the chance to catch up with them and see them moving forward in their lives together. I really like newly introduced character, Royal, and am looking forward to seeing more of her in the future! And the over-arching storyline continues to develop with the boys looking at opening up a second store at the request of their friend and mentor, Phil.

The storyline with Phil was absolutely amazing! He is a father figure to all of the boys, but Nash is the one that he raised, and their bond is incredibly special. The emotion in their relationship, and the way that all played out was so, so beautiful, and I had tears in my eyes more than once.

“I want you to know, this man—the man you are now—he is a man you can be proud of.”

Overall, I did like the story. Nash’s pure awesomeness totally saved it for me, and I’m looking forward to moving on with Rowdy’s book up next.

4 stars.

 

The Marked Men series

Rule  Jet  Rome  Nash  Rowdy  Asa

Rule (#1)
Review
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Jet (#2)
Review
Buy:  Kindle Ebook  |  Paperback

Rome (#3)
Review
Buy:  Kindle Ebook  |  Paperback

Nash (#4)
Review
Buy:  Kindle Ebook  |  Paperback

Rowdy (#5)
Review
Buy:  Kindle Ebook  |  Paperback

Asa (#6)
Review
Buy:  Kindle Ebook  |  Paperback

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