Guest Review - - You're the One

You’re the One

By Robin Kaye

Publisher: Signet Eclipse/NAL

Release Date: June 4, 2013

 

Logan Blaise’s life is just where he wants it to be. He has achieved professional success as a San Francisco vintner, and he’s engaged to Peyton Billingsly, daughter of the owner of Billingsly Vineyards. Papa Billingsly is grooming Logan as his successor. Logan met Peyton when they were both students at Stanford, and neither she nor her family knows anything of his background as one of the Bad Boys of Red Hook. Logan has returned to Red Hook to keep an eye on his foster father, who is recovering from heart surgery, and the family bar, the Crow’s Nest. His brother Storm came halfway round the world when Logan called to tell him Pop needed his help. The least Logan can do is fill in while Storm and his bride Bree are on their honeymoon. Logan is already stressed out over policing the diet and alcohol intake of his stubborn pop and even more stressed about the possibility that Pete’s ten-year-old foster daughter may be Logan’s child. When the chef at the Crow’s Nest leaves suddenly to care for an ill parent, Logan moves from stressed to desperate.

Counting on family tradition established with her four older brothers, Skye Maxwell had expected to be given her own restaurant where she could reign supreme as chef for her thirtieth birthday. Instead, she is named Business Manager of her family’s group of restaurants and told that as a woman, she is unsuited to be a chef. Determined to prove her father and brothers wrong, Skye resigns and leaves San Francisco.  She wants to make it on her own without depending on her family’s wealth or connections. The Help Wanted sign in the window of the Crow’s Nest seems like the answer she’s seeking, especially since Logan’s need to find quickly a replacement chef is too great for him to ask too many awkward questions.

Soon Skye is in command of the kitchen at the Crow’s Nest and of Logan’s heart. Bad boy Logan with his devotion to Pete and his Red Hook roots is very different from the shallow, polished man she thought was Logan Blaise. As for Logan, the man who thought he could not fall in love discovers how wrong he is, but getting rid of his fiancée proves more complicated than he expects. Just at the moment he thinks everything is perfect, Skye disappears. Both Logan and Skye have to be willing to accept their vulnerabilities and trust one another before they can begin an HEA to equal Storm and Bree’s.

Logan’s story is the second in Kaye’s Bad Boys of Red Hook series, following last year’s Back to You. Most of the characters in the first book have a role in the second one, and the dynamics of family and friends keep the story interesting. Logan’s story begins at the wedding of Storm and Bree. Pete is as grumpy and as endearing as ever, Nikki is as funny and needy, and Rocki and Patrice are quick to add Skye to their circle of girlfriends. The chemistry between Logan and Skye is explosive, but the combustibility overpowers the development of their emotional connection. And the misunderstanding that sends Skye back to New York is convenient and predictable.

Readers who enjoyed Back to You will want to read You’re the One to follow the interlinked stories of the sons Pete saved and made his own, but the second book is not as strong as the first one. Nevertheless, a series with an urban setting that still has a rich sense of community is a welcome addition to the contemporary romance scene. The third book in the series, Always and Forever, is scheduled for release in early February 2014. I’ll definitely be among those headed to Red Hook, the Crow’s Nest, and another bad boy’s story then.

~Janga
http://justjanga.blogspot.com

Guest Review - - Back to You

Back to You

By Robin Kaye

Publisher: Signet

Release Date: December 31, 2012

Storm Decker is coming home to Red Hook, the Brooklyn neighborhood he left behind him eleven years ago to make his mark in a larger world. He has succeeded beyond his expectations, finding his place in Auckland, where he owns his own company. Designing boats for the rich and famous, winning yacht races, and making more money than a poor kid from Brooklyn could imagine allow Storm to take pride in the life he has built. Returning to Red Hook was not part of his plan, but he owes a lot to his foster father, an ex-cop and bar owner, who took Storm in when his biological father almost killed him. Pete gave Storm a home, a family, and a space to grow his dreams. Storm will make whatever sacrifices he must to be there for Pete while he’s recovering from a quadruple bypass. As long as his Pop needs him, he’ll be in Red Hook.

Breanna Collins owes a lot to Pete as well. When her own police officer father was killed on duty, Pete, her dad’s partner and life-long friend, stepped in, becoming a substitute father for Bree. He gave her a place of safety and sanity and a chance to lead a normal life when her mother’s obsessive drive to protect her almost smothered Bree. She and Storm grew up together, but she never thought of Storm as a brother. She was seventeen when they almost became lovers, but Storm ran away, leaving her devastated. In the eleven years that Storm has been gone, Bree has finished college and taken over most of the responsibility for the Crow’s Nest, Pete’s bar, transforming it into something more than just another smoky neighborhood bar in the process. She’s also a leader in the movement to revitalize Red Hook, something she does in tribute to her father who loved the community.  Her work, her friends, and her love for ten-year-old Nikki, the most recent of Pete’s kids fill her life.

Bree knows she needs help with a recovering Pete, a bar to manage, and a ten-year-old to care for, but Logan Blaise is the foster son she contacted. She’s not prepared for an encounter with Storm. In fact, at first she thinks he’s a burglar and attacks him with a frying pan. Once she recognizes him she realizes that the chemistry between them has just grown stronger in the years they have been apart. But Bree is determined that history will not repeat itself. Convinced that Storm, who “probably had Peter Pan tattooed on his ass,” has not disposed of his running shoes, Bree decides to indulge her lust and protect her heart. Storm is just as eager as Bree to finish what they started all those years ago, but he refuses to become just a bed partner. He’s confused about what he feels for Bree, for Nickki, and for Red Hook, but he knows that Bree is too important to him to settle for a relationship that ends with the physical. But first Breanna has to trust him with her heart and with the secrets she’s keeping from him, and that’s a battle he may not win.

I love reunion stories, and this is a terrific one with layers of complications. Bree and Storm both have their share of baggage, and they have to learn to trust themselves as well as one another. There’s an interesting bit of role reversal going on. Not only is Bree the character who insists on sex without emotional engagement, but she also demonstrates repeatedly an insensitivity to Storm’s feelings and a determination to believe the worst of him. Storm is the one who recognizes early on that he needs commitment, and he is openly vulnerable to Bree’s assaults on his integrity. He takes pride in her and what she has accomplished and even takes care to see that she is protected after her lack of trust convinces him there is no hope for the two of them.

The story includes a strong cast of secondary characters. Pete is an endearing grump who leads with his heart. Nikki is a fierce, wounded, smart, and funny kid who stole my heart in the first few pages. I also loved the friendship that connects Bree and her girlfriends Rocki and Patrice. They have her back, but they can practice tough love when it’s needed.

Red Hook is as much a presence in the story as any character. It’s also a welcome urban addition to a contemporary romance landscape that seems to have become almost the exclusive property of small-town settings in recent years. I was particularly pleased that the reclamation of the community is not regentrification fueled by outsiders but revitalization led by the residents.

I read Kaye’s Romeo, Romeo when it was getting a lot of buzz several years ago and really enjoyed it, but I haven’t read anything by her since. I liked Back to You so well that I downloaded “Hometown Girl,” the novella that introduced the Red Hook series, and I have You’re the One, the second Bad Boys of Red Hook novel, on my book calendar. It’s Logan’s story, and it releases June 4. I’ll be checking out Kaye’s backlist too. If you like contemporary romance with a nice sizzle balanced by a compelling story about characters who will charm and captivate you, with the addition of a rich sense of place, I definitely recommend Back to You.

~Janga
http://justjanga.blogspot.com