One Sexy Ride (Thompson & Sons #2) by Vivian Arend

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Reviewed by Tabatha

 

Len Thompson is the middle son, and the ever stoic backbone of the Thompson family.  He rarely complains and has always been the type to just keep to himself when others would chatter on.  He’s wanted Janey Watson since they were kids, but an unbearable personal tragedy happened while he was in high school that has kept him from ever acting out on their mutual feelings for each other.  What I could never really figure out while reading was why now? Yes we were told that she was planning on moving, although she didn’t seem overly keen on the idea, but we never find out exactly what she said in her drug induced night with Len to provoke him into action.  I honestly think she said something that night, but sadly we’ll never know.  Although I feel like One Sexy Ride had an overall feel good vibe to it, I just couldn’t get past the juvenile characterization of our hero that caused me to be unable to connect with him.  I have no idea of what their supposed ages are, since we are given very little in the way of character description, but he acted emotionally like he was still a teenager making it very difficult for me to view him as our sexy hero.   His inexperience when it came to women was definitely endearing in a cute and very sweet way, but I also found it funny that he somehow manages to become a powerhouse in bed despite this.  Now don’t get me wrong here because I do think that he was sexy, but it is a romance after all so he can’t suck in bed his first time, am I right?  All that aside though, he did do some really adorable things to win Janey back, so he definitely had that going for him there towards the end.

On the other side of things, I really enjoyed Janey even if it did take a little while for me to warm up to her.  I loved that her character was more aggressive; she had a really fun, strong personality and liked how she was the perfect balance to Len’s stoic nature.  Regrettably, she started the story with some questionable actions that I later found to be completely out of character for her.   What woman, in her right mind, takes a drink from a total stranger?  To me, that was beyond naive and nearly classified her as a too stupid to live heroine for me, but I’m glad I didn’t write her off completely until I got to know her better.  She really is a smart girl, so doing something that dumb just didn’t feel right for her character.  Casting those feelings aside though, she and Len definitely burn up the sheets, and I enjoyed the intensity that their relationship had in that regard.  Another slight snag, and it honestly wasn’t that big of a deal, was that I understood communication was going to be their issue early on given Len’s nature, but it also would have been nice to see them have some other issue since that really was kind of cliché. 

Anyhoo… the bottom line is that I think this book needed a few more edits to make it a really great read.  The base story line was a personal favorite of mine with the whole friends to lovers trope, so I had high hopes for it.  The one thing I just don’t like to see when I read are content errors, and I found too many to really push me to fall in love with this book.  There were too many mentions of things that were never followed through, so I found a lot of missing pieces in the story that were never really resolved.  What was really up with Mr. Jons, because it felt like more should have been there with him, and can I just say that the thing with his nephew, Brad, was just weird, too.  Also, what was in the pink wrapping paper there at the end? Do we ever find these things out? Nope, but I would have liked to.  Anyway…I’m digressing.    I would say that One Sexy Ride was a decent read overall. Now was it what I was expecting from this author given what I’ve previously read of her work?  Not really, but I’m interested in the family and what comes next for them, so I am looking forward to reading more of this series in the future.  

*I received a review copy from the publisher/author via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review*

If you'd like to check out more about this series or other books by Vivian, please head over to her website.

http://vivianarend.com/ 

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