Wednesday, August 12, 2015

ARC REVIEW: Falling for the P.I. (Still Harbor #1) by Victoria James

Title: Falling for the P.I.
Series: Still Harbor #1
Author: Victoria James
Publisher: Entangled Bliss
Published: August 11th 2015
Format: eARC | Pages: 150
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Source: Publisher
★★★✩ (3.5/5) Stars!

Victoria James | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Savor the sweetness of new love with Bliss's new romance...

She could never trust a cop...

Teacher Kate Abbott's fresh start in Still Harbor was the beginning of the life that she and her two best friends always imagined for themselves. Still, being a working single parent of a special needs daughter hasn't exactly improved Kate's love life. But Kate's preference for nachos over men quickly disappears when she meets the oh-so-sexy Matt Lane.

Until she finds out he's a cop.

Matt is a former cop-turned-private investigator, and he knows fear when he sees it. A cop clearly spooked Kate...or hurt her. Still, something about the gorgeous professor catches his attention, and despite his "no settling down" policy, he can't resist her. But all of the attraction in the world won't be enough to overcome Kate's past...



I received a copy of this book, from the publisher, in exchange for an honest review. In no way did this sway either my review or my rating!

Well, I definitely wasn't expecting this to be as heavy as it was. There's just so much of Falling for the P.I. that tugs at the heartstrings. As I read I felt my heart tumbling over and over, sometimes for the achingly sweet moments and others for the completely and utterly heart wrenching ones. This was a really great start to the Still Harbor series and already I'm wondering how on earth my heart is going to survive through Cara and Alex's stories when Kate's has already put me through the wringer!

I love when a story has a really good mysterious character. It's so much fun for me trying to figure out their backstory and the reasons for whatever issues they may have before it gets revealed. Though parts of Kate's story were hinted at and easy to figure out the rest not so much. Her story ended up being more sad and tragic than I had imagined.

I did have a bit of difficulty in the beginning, though. I was a bit overwhelmed with all the characters I had thrown at me. I mean, you had Kate, Cara and Alex who are basically sisters and they all live together. But you add to their little makeshift family Kate's adopted daughter Janie and the two girls that Cara and Alex adopted Cassy and Beth. My head was just a mess. And if I'm being honest, without going back to the very beginning of the book and double checking...I can't really remember, besides Janie obviously, which kid belongs to which sister. It just felt kind of chaotic and overwhelming to me at first since all 6 of them were living under the same roof.

Regardless of all of that though they were all some very deep and complex characters with interesting stories. Both Kate and Matt had a similar traumatic childhood so it was more realistic to see her very slowly let down her walls for him. And I do mean slowly. It took a long time for her to build up any kind of trust in him and allow herself to feel safe in sharing what she'd been through.

At times, not gonna lie, it could be frustrating how often Kate would push Matt away and not trust her instincts with him. I understood. Her reasons were valid. It still was frustrating.

In the end, frustrations aside, I still found it hard to want to put this book down. The storyline was really good. It was just the right mix of tragedy, sweetness, humor and romance. And I'm really looking forward to continuing on with the Still Harbor series!

Thanks to Entangled Publishing for the opportunity to read and review this book!




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