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Review

Kristen Ashley has again managed to reduce me into a swoony pile of goo. Oh my God, this book was amazing, and absolutely, utterly adorable!

Nina is a great heroine. She is strong, stubborn, and argumentative, but she is also very sensitive. She has some trauma in her past and, coming off a string of bad relationships, she is in no way prepared for the arrival of Max in her life.

Holden ‘Max’ Maxwell, *sigh*. Goddam, the man is utter perfection! I absolutely adore him! The chemistry between Max and Nina is obvious from the very start, and it continues to grow throughout the book. They have some very intense moments, as well as a lot of sweetness, and a whole heap of steam!

In the grand tradition of KA Alphas, Max decides that he wants Nina, and spends the majority of the book convincing her of that fact while helping her to overcome her issues (for of course, she has issues). While at times Nina’s hesitation in completely opening up to Max was frustrating, I understood her reasoning behind it. Although I did get really annoyed with her at one point, screeching at my kindle that she should just talk to Max – but in the end, I really liked the way that particular part of the story played out, as it gave us a bit more insight into Max as well, and my heart broke for both of them in the scenes leading up to, during and after a particularly nasty fight that ended with this line:

“Told you, something’s good, it’s worth fightin’ for but not if you’re the only one fightin’.
Then he opened the door, slamming it behind him and stalked out.

OH MY GOD!! That scene was so intense, I freaking loved it! And of course seeing them come back together afterwards, finally laying out all of the secrets and insecurities, was beautifully written and incredibly emotional (and a wee bit weepy).

Spoiler

What I loved most about this part of the story was that Max never disrespected his dead wife, Anna. It’s easy for authors to write off the dead wife as somebody who wasn’t perfect, and the new love swoops in to be everything that wife #1 wasn’t. I love that Max admitted that he loved Anna deeply, and she was his world, but that her world had ended when she died, and his went on, and now he found something equally as amazing with Nina. It was absolutely beautiful, and made me love him even more!

There is a murder mystery storyline that actually provides a few surprises, and intertwines nicely with the romance – along with kidnappings, a bar fight, multiple verbal and physical smackdowns, a dramatic rescue and lots of funny moments.

And the dialogue is just sensational (too many quotes to put into my review, so check out quotes I added below) – the verbal sparring between Max and Nina starts at their first meeting and doesn’t let up the entire way through the book, and it’s brilliant!!! Nina is a bit of a spitfire with the scathing comebacks and has some epic verbal smackdown scenes, and Max also has some stellar moments in defence of his “woman” that will make you swoon, cheer and clap your hand over your mouth saying to yourself “oh my God, he did NOT just say that!!”. And when you bring in Max and Nina’s circle of family and friends with their nutty moments, girl talk, fights and the deep and meaningful stuff, it just gets better.

The secondary characters play a huge part of the story, and I love the way that KA can involve a huge cast of characters in her books, yet you feel like you know each of them intimately and wish they were real so that you hang out with them.

And to top it all off, there is a gorgeous HEA and a very swoony Epilogue.

So this is why we love Kristen Ashley! She has written a beautiful story that sweeps you along on an emotional ride from start to finish. I am in a complete and utter swoon with no intention of getting out of it, so on to the next book in the series…