Recent Read

One Reckless Summer by Toni Blake

Why this one: I was really taken with her last book, Letters to a Secret Lover and it was a furshure that I'd be reading this one. I've been checking ever since it came out for it to appear on the shelves at Chapters - and finally - it did.

Steam Level: There was Ice Cube sex in it - that should tell you it was plenty steamy!!

Author Website Blurb:

The perfect daughter. The perfect prom queen. The perfect wife. Jenny Tolliver’s been the good girl all her life, and it’s gotten her nowhere. Now that her marriage has been busted up by her cheating ex, she’s decided it’s time to regroup and rediscover herself. This summer she’s headed back to her hometown of Destiny, Ohio, to the very lakeshore cottage where she grew up, to figure out what life holds in store for her next.

She never dreamed the answer would be Mick Brody, Destiny’s #1 hellraiser. He comes from the wrong side of the tracks (or in his case, the lake), and he’s landed in hot water more times than he can count. He’s exactly the kind of guy Jenny’s always kept her distance from … but soon the good girl and the bad boy are caught in a raw heat that’s out of control. Too bad Mick’s got a secret that threatens to tear them apart and ruin Jenny’s perfectly, passionately reckless summer …

My Thoughts: As much as I loved Letters to a Secret Lover, I loved this one even more!! One of my favourite story lines has always been heroine/hero knew each other years ago and heroine is a 'good' girl and hero is a 'bad' boy from the wrong side of the tracks - or in this case - the wrong side of the lake. And this one only underscores that storyline love.

Jenny Tolliver was always a 'good' girl. She was the daughter of the widowed chief of police of Destiny Ohio, Walter Tolliver and never put as much as a toe out of place. But she is tired of her good girl self when she catches her husband cheating on her with her very own teaching assistant. So she ditches her husband, ditches her job in the 'big' city and heads back to the small town she grew up in. She's still a 'good' girl but things are about to change when she runs into the hero Mick Brody, one of the 'no good' Brody boys. She didn't know him very well, but does vividly remember an encounter she had with him when she was 16.

Things heat up between them Very Fast when she visits his side of the lake to better star gaze and unexpectedly runs into him and he demands she leave. He threatens her with his very self, but instead of leaving, she answers his challenge and thus follows the first of many steamy encounters between the two of them.

What starts off as raw lust though, slowly develops into love as each fills a need in the other. Jenny has been left feeling lacking as a sexy woman after her husbands cheating and her own 'good' girl upbringing. Mick is going through a very difficult and dark time and Jenny is his oasis.

I really enjoyed everything about this book, the small town feel, the friendship between Jenny and her best friend Sue Ann, the father/daughter relationship and ESPECIALLY the relationship between Jenny and Mick. I thought Jenny was a great heroine - someone I'd love to call friend.

And then there is Mick. Wow!! He just broke my heart. Without giving spoilers, I so identified with what he was going through and I totally 'got' why he was so drawn to Jenny. He had made a lot of mistakes in his life, but was trying to change his ways when he is called back into a very gray time. And man, is he sex on a stick!! I raced through this book and I know it's going to be one I read and reread again. This one I have no qualms about recommending - at all! It's funny in places and sad in others and came oh so close to making me cry. It has a poignancy to it and I always love a book that has that.

Grade: 5 out of 5