Rowena’s review of Shooting for the Stars (Gravity #3) by Sarina Bowen.
For one night she had everything.
Pro snowboarder Stella Lazarus has always loved her brother’s best friend. But the one time she tried to show him, she was shot down faster than you can say “competitor disqualified.”
Until one blissful night in Tahoe, when Stella finally gets her man.
Or does she? In the morning, Stella and Bear wake up to horrible news. The sort that sends them racing back to Vermont, and straight into the arms of guilt and family obligations.
For all of Bryan “Bear” Barry’s life, three natural laws held true: his best friend Hank was destined for greatness, Hank’s sister Stella was off-limits, and Bear would always manage to negotiate the rocky paths that life threw his way. In the space of two days, that’s all shattered.
Bear can’t believe he slipped up so badly with Stella. Even if his best friend wasn’t lying broken in a hospital bed, it would still be unforgivable. Determined to do better, he devotes himself to his friend’s recovery, denying himself the very person he loves. And the very thing he needs.
Shooting for the Stars is the third book in the Gravity series and let me tell you, I read this series all out of order. I read the second book first, the first book second and then ended with this book but I thought this series was another good one for Bowen’s back list. I like that she writes romances for the normal person. Her characters are everyday, average people that fall in love and their stories are just as interesting as the rich people.
In this book, we get Stella (Hank “Hazardous” Lazarus’ sister from Book 1) and Bear’s book. Bear is Hank’s best friend and Stella is Hank’s little sister. Bear is having trouble keeping his hands off his best friend’s sister and throughout the book, he drives me nuts. I felt a lot of his issues could have been resolved without wasting as much time as he did by just talking to Hazardous about everything. I wanted him to come clean and stop stringing Stella along because Stella’s longstanding feelings kept getting hurt. By him.
Then there was Stella. My heart hurt for her but over the course of the book, I thought that she kept going back for more when she shouldn’t have. I know that she couldn’t help the way that she felt about Bear but she put herself through some serious pain because she wanted to what? Force Bear into coming clean about his feelings? He should have wanted to do that on his own and she should have let him come to those conclusions on his own.
But even with all of my frustrations between the two of these guys, I still liked the book overall. It wasn’t my favorite book by Bowen but it was still enjoyable. I liked seeing Hank and Callie and seeing Bear’s point of view about the whole Alexis thing. I also liked that we had a hero, down on his luck and trying to figure out his next move. The movie venture was interesting and I loved how excited and scared Bear was about everything. There’s plenty in this book that I liked and the romance between Bear and Stella was just a part of the book that drove me nuts but in the end, they get together so it’s all good in the hood. I’m still looking forward to more Sarina Bowen books in the future.
Grade: 3.25 out of 5
This book is available from Sarina Bowen. You can purchase it here or here in e-format.
