Get Hold Of The Best Man In Texas Penned By Tanya Michaels Accessible As Document
was she able to remember her one close dance with Jake with more clarity than the many kisses she'd exchanged with her fiancé
I know a lot of people are going to have problems with this book, because it is about CHEATERS.
I know this is a hotbutton issue with a lot of people, So I want to say it up front, The Best Man in Texas is about a best man who steals his friend's bride, The hero, Jake, is a cheater, The heroine, Brooke, is a cheater,
If cheating sets you off, SKIP THIS BOOK, While I don't like cheating or condone it I certainly have never cheated on a man, I am not disturbed by cheating in books.
I happen to think sitelinkThe Bridges of Madison County is one of the best books ever written, So.
Okay, end of warning, let's get down to reviewing,
Brooke is marrying Giff, They've known each other two months and have never had sex, I know, warning bells were going off for me, too,
It's fine if people wait for sex, Carmen,
Oh, I'm in complete agreement, I'm all for waiting a long long, long time before having sex with someone, You want to really know them and make sure you can trust them and IMO be in love with them before you let them possibly infect you with an STD or impregnate you.
Full agreement. However, she's going to marry this man, After two months of knowing him, Without going to bed with him, This screams 'bad idea' to me,
Giff's a gorgeous, rich man with a busy career, Jake, his best friend, is a gorgeous fireman who travels the country and world in his free time, He also served in the U, S. Army.
Brooke is fucked up in the head due to her upbringing, Her parents were volatile hippies who did not offer her a stable environment when she was growing up, Her older sister Megan and her parents are still living this wild, spontaneous, unstable lifestyle, Brooke is determined to carve out a stable, steady, boring life for herself and her future kids,
Brooke had spent years carefully laying out what she wanted her future to be like, what kind of family she would build.
Her own children would enjoy a comforting, STABLE life, Giff intelligent, reliable and, as a bonus, movie star handsome could give her everything she'd ever wanted,
The problem is that she's not really in love with Giff a fact she is unable to face.
When Giff had asked her last night to be his wife, she'd experienced a twinge a whisper, really of doubt.
Thy'd been dating exclusively since the night, not that long ago, they'd been introduced at a charity St, Patrick's Day gala. And while she appreciated his brilliance as a technologies consultant, his work ethic and his devotion to his mother, who was recovering from breast cancer, Brooke had occasionally taken stock of her feelings and wondered if there should be.
. . more.
Her life had been peppered with strange announcements and incoming decisions that she'd had no control over, Instead of growing more accustomed to them over them, they'd made her almost brittle, As if the next thing that startled her might send her over the edge, Taking a deep breath, Brooke reassured herself that life with Giff would hold blessedly few surprises,
He planned ahead and always did as promised,
But she's been in tumultuous relationships where she's been gaga over a man before, and she didn't like how that turned out.
Despite herself, Brooke had once fallen for a guy outside her comfort zone a fellow writer she'd met during her college years in Austin.
Her tumultuous onagain, offagain year with the gorgeous brooding poet had reinforced her belief that she didn't need anymore spontaneous types or "artistic temperaments" in her life.
Now she had a gorgeous business man who always called when he said he would and would never forget her birthday.
Nothing
could make her happier,
When she is introduced to Jake, Giff's best man, she is slightly flustered because she recognizes him from the shirtless picture of him in the firefighter's calendar.
We know she's in real trouble with her upcoming marriage when she compares Giff to an old bathrobe,
Except this wasn't like this with Giff, She didn't stumble over her words or find herself bizarrely defensive, He was as comfortable as a favorite bathrobe, a perfect fit,
The rest of the book is her alternating between fantasizing about her safe, calm future with rich, handsome Giff, and being faintly excited by Jake someone who is not who she envisioned herself ending up with.
Jake and Giff are not opposites, Both are goodlooking, reasonably intelligent, kind men, That's good and important Michaels isn't employing lazy writing here, Giff is a rich businessman who has a steady life and a permanent place in the world, Jake is far from unstable but he travels, explores the U, S. and the world, and works as a firefighter, Not what I would call 'dangerous' or 'living on the edge,' but it is too much excitement for Brooke,
Let's break this down,
. There's nothing wrong with Giff, Giff is a perfectly wonderful guy, He is kind, smart, treats Brooke well, . . Michaels shows strong writing here in resisting the urge to make the futurehusband a dick, That's important. He's a good man and he doesn't deserve betrayal from his best friend and his woman,
. I wanted these two to fuck, Some good news about this book is that I was interested in these two ending up together, I wanted Jake to slowly, slowly do things to Brooke and break down her hard, rigid view on life and not only seduce her sexually, but get her to relax and enjoy herself a little bit.
It would have been superfun in the hands of an author/book that would actually allow sex/seduction, He's so gently amused by her unyielding, structured life plan, It would have been very fun and hot to see him slowly break down her walls, He's gentle and kind. I would have enjoyed it,
Also, the cover model's hands were turning me on, not gonna lie,
. Cheating, romanticized. The only problem with the aforementioned seduction I craved is that Brooke is engaged to be married to Jake's best friend.
I'm not into cheating, and I think this put a damper on the whole thing, Betrayal is the worst I couldn't believe poor Giff's fiancée AND lifelong best friend were backstabbing him, Cheating is very unattractive. I do not support this,
I mean, I don't flip out like some GR reviewers, . . but I'm not a fan, Michaels is saying Giff is the wrong man for her, Jake is the one who likes dancing and he is the one who gently teases her and gently draws her out of her comfort zones.
The line between 'good intentions' and 'selfish bastard' had become amazingly blurred,
Jake tried to summon the mental picture of her and Giff at a kitchen table, surrounded by the undoubtedly cute kids they would have together.
Instead, he imagined a tall, scuffed table in a dingy nightclub where Giff sat awkwardly, making a concerted effort to like a loud indie rock band while Brooke told herself that she didn't mind not dancing, that there were more important qualifications in a potential mate.
. Good pasts. Michaels does a good job of giving Jake and Brooke pasts, and doesn't skimp on plot outside of 'falling in love.
' Brooke is, of course, dealing with her flaky parents and wild sister, Jake is avoiding his alcoholic father and a mother he sees as 'weak, ' Both interact with their families, and their interactions with families change as they both improve each other as people, It's good.
. Gentle teasing.
"You're missing the point, Ms, Nichols. This isn't an op or a threealarm, We don't have to follow any plans, We can do whatever we want or do nothing at all, eat dessert before dinner, Wear mismatched socks!"
She pursed her lips, well aware that he was picking up on her but amused despite herself.
Not that she planned to admit that, "Are you quite finished"
"Probably not," he said unrepentantly, "Expect random bouts of mockery, "
"You and Giff are so different, "
Jake slanted her a glance as he started the car, "Meaning he's a gentleman who would never heckle a lady, whereas I'm a cad who doesn't take anything seriously"
Gosh, I love gentle teasing.
I love when you are with a man, and he really knows you and your faults and quirks and everything about you, and he's able to gently tease you about them.
It's no fun if someone gets hurt, I'm not talking about mean teasing, I'm talking about very gentle, loving teasing, When couples have this, it is so good, Above, you can see Jake gently ribbing Brooke about how rigid she is, She knows this about herself, and is amused by his joking, even though at the same time she's not going to change.
I like it, he does it often through the book and I think it's a great couple dynamic, Loving. It makes me think that the two characters are in sync when this happens in a novel,
Here's later in the book:
"I've always loved otters," she said,
"Really They seem pretty, . . frivolous. " Jake flashed her a teasing smile she knew he was about to give her grief, but found herself grinning back rather than growing defensive.
"I would have expected you to champion more serious, organized creatures, "
She raised an eyebrow, "Such as" Nothing that she knew of in the animal kingdom carried appointment books or smartphones, "You're going to say something like an ant or worker bee, aren't you"
"I was thinking more like a lioness.
They're smart, organized. They feed the pride, raise the young and take down animals bigger than themselves, "
She'd assumed he was setting her up for goodnatured mocking, and instead he's compared her to a fierce, majestic animal Not for the first time today, she felt as if she were tripping over her own expectations.
That's a man like Jake for you,
He'd always keep a woman on her toes, never quite sure what to expect, It might be fun for an evening out or a road trip, but long term It would be an unnerving, exhausting way to live, always trying to figure out the person you were with and never quite sure you had it right.
Then again, life with a man like Jake would have other perks,
. Ruined plans, becoming a person she actively avoided, I also like how Michaels handles the cheating, Brooke feels like absolute shit,
Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, Brooke stood against the closed door, wringing her hands like a bad actress in a melodrama, She wasn't this person. She was paralyzed by the nauseating indecision over what to do next confess all to Giff immediately or spend the next seventy years hoping he never found out.
I can't face him.
Which might make for an awkward ceremony,
If this is what cheating felt like, why did anyone ever do it
Accurate, She's nauseous and scared exactly the way you feel when you know you've fucked up, Michaels doesn't try to pretty this up or sugarcoat it,
Another nice touch is the crisis Brooke is having, She's spent her whole life literally since she was a child telling herself what kind of life she is going to make for herself, trying hard to be a stable and steady person, actively avoiding any kind of drama and excitement.
Now she's a cheater. She's cheating on her steady, loving fiancé with a firefighter, This is causing her to have a meltdown,
She was still baffled as to how she'd messed up her life so spectacularly despite having the best of intentions and a solid plan.
She's terrified the gene that made her parents flakes has started to show itself,
It was the nightmare version of herself, the one she'd always feared she might wake up and see in the mirror, the passiondriven dreamer who would make Meg and Didi look like calm analysts in comparison.
. Follow up. I also like the followup in the book, Michaels doesn't simply have Jake and Brooke cheat, have Brooke break up with Giff, and then have our MCs ride off into the sunset.
She deals with the fallout, Brooke
This is good.
Also, Jake is so gentle and so good with her, He's so calm, kind, and patient with her this is a huge turnon to me, I adore kind, calm, patient men, This is very attractive. I like how Michaels follows up with this couple, and Jake has to learn to bend just like Brooke does,
Maybe their disconnects so far hadn't been ALL about her running away maybe he needed to stop coming on so strong.
If fussing over him and taking a minute helped her feel more comfortable with their relationship nothing in the world could convince him this was only lust, not after the wealth of relief he'd seen in her eyes today then why deny her He could keep from pouncing on her long enough to let HER come to HIM.
Probably.
HOW'S THE SEX, CARMEN
Completely undescribed and boring, Sigh. One of the huge drawbacks to Harlequin's American Romance line,
Pieces of clothing hit the floor between kisses, and he found himself gifted with an unexpected image that would be forever seared onto his memory: Brooke wearing only a pair of sparkly high heels, a lopsided flower garland and a naughty smile.
He pressed her to the bed with the newly formed goal of kissing every creamy inch of her, "I don't deserve you," he murmured above the flat dip of her navel,
Brooke would have told him he was wrong, but she couldn't speak, His mouth was making her crazy, She had no words or coherent thoughts, She had no inhibitions. She had no plan. She had no filter. She was bared to him in every way possible, The sensations Jake had ignited beneath her skin overwhelmed her, surging up and hurtling her into a shattering release,
I'm guessing he's going down on her Unclear, Undescribed.
She cried out, unnerved by the sheer intensity of what she'd experienced, but then he was kissing her, and the craving that should have been sated built again.
Murmuring her name, he slid inside her, not trying to slow her down when she set a savage, frantic rhythm that sent them both over the edge.
Brooke felt flung from her body, Dots swam in front of her eyes, Her lungs would never have enough oxygen in them again,
Not descriptive enough for me, but better than what's in some American Romances, I guess,
TLDR: I have low expectations for American Romance, It's always nice when one surprised me like this, Michaels actually did a pretty good job here, I liked the characters, I was actually excited for them to be together and that's not true of every romance book.
On the downside, I wish it hadn't been about cheating cheaters, This is wrong. I mean, yes, Giff was the wrong man for Brooke, but she should have broke up with him long before things got to the point that they did in this book.
I'm against cheating. I'm not violently opposed to reading about it in fiction that would be rape, for me but I know some GR reviewers are violently opposed to it.
If you have an inability to read about cheating, this isn't the book for you, Cheating is romanticized and validated here,
Read at your own risk,
ROMANCE CATEGORIES:
Cheating
Contemporary Romance
NonVirgin Heroine,