Cath Talarico knows a mistake when she makes it, and God knows she’s made her share. So many, in fact, that this Chicago girl knows London is her last, best shot at starting over. But bad habits are hard to break, and soon Cath finds herself back where she has vowed never to go . . . in the bed of a man who is all kinds of wrong: too rich, too classy, too uptight for a free-spirited troublemaker like her.
Nev Chamberlain feels trapped and miserable in his family’s banking empire. But beneath his pinstripes is an artist and bohemian struggling to break free and lose control. Mary Catherine—even her name turns him on—with her tattoos, her secrets, and her gamine, sex-starved body, unleashes all kinds of fantasies.
When blue blood mixes with bad blood, can a couple that is definitely wrong for each other ever be perfectly right? And with a little luck and a lot of love, can they make last night last a lifetime?
Cath is a Chicagoan living in England. She takes the train daily and works at a museum – living a nice, quiet, staid and safe life. This is the New Cath. The “old” Cath we don’t know much about but we get a clue that Cath thinks she made some mistakes in her young life.
One of her favorite things is to watch the people on the train platform and try to figure out their stories and of course she has a name for each of them. One of the people that she thinks she’s got figured out is “City”. City comes to the train in his suits with the newspaper under his arm. He’s gorgeous and oh so not Cath’s type. So why did she end up waking up in his flat?
Cath had agreed to go out on a blind date and ends up drunk – to try and drown out her excessive boredom. She ends up a bit depressed when she starts thinking about her deceased mother and drinks even more. She wakes up in a flat that is not her own and the night before slowly comes back to her. She finds herself in City’s apartment and instead of the buttoned up man she sees on the train all the time she finds a man in jeans and a t-shirt, painting a portrait. The pair find that they hit it off and though Cath is sure that she shouldn’t sleep with “City”, otherwise known as Nev, she does anyway. That is the beginning of what is an amazing and wonderful relationship – to a point. Sure Cath refuses to actually date Nev but they end up together almost all the time they’re not working anyway. Cath starts to open up to Nev about herself and her past and slowly but surely she falls in love with him. Nev falls as well but as open as he is with Cath even he isn’t completely open and trusting.
The tenderness and caring that Nev shows Cath from moment one will, I think, be forever imprinted in my brain. The initial love scene with Nev and Cath was so damned good I went back and read it again. Lol He was such a paradox with his high powered bank job, his family who is all about appearances but then there’s his love for life, his great sense of humor, his relaxed artist personality and it just made me wonder who the real Nev was. I loved that stuffed shirt so very much. Yes, he was emotionally stunted as was Cath but they just worked for each other in so many different ways.
Unfortunately Cath is too fearful of truly letting go and frankly so is Nev. Between the two of them they have to work out their issues and the way that things were resolved in the end was very sweet. I loved so very much of this book. I can see where others might find it a bit frustrating at parts, and yeah, I’m not a huge fan of non-communication but in this case it all just worked for me.
Knox’s writing was fun and easy to read with great dialogue, but it was also emotionally charged and somewhat electric. I loved the fact that she didn’t feel like she had to write a perfect hero OR a perfect heroine. These people were real to me, with real issues that made the book so much better. I would definitely recommend this one as a great summer read.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place
This book is available from Loveswept – Random House Digital. You can buy it here or here in e-format.
Oh my gosh! I loved this book too!! Completely and utterly romantic and I really enjoyed NOT having a perfect heroine or hero too 🙂 After reading this one I immediately went out and bought her first book, which I had somehow missed. Both books are excellent. GREAT review 🙂
The Brunette Librarian Blog
Great review, this sounds like a really worth-while book and I’ll try to get my paws on it and read it soon! :)It sounds like I’ll love both Nev and Cath
The Brunette Librarian – It was so good. I thought I was going to start getting more frustrated with Cath down the line but it all really came together so nicely.
Alex – Hope you like it!
I agree 100% with this review. I think the reason I didn’t get frustrated with Cath was that she really did have some serious flaws in her background. It wasn’t just “Oh, poor me, my one and only boyfriend cheated on me, so now I hate men” or something equally as banal. And City/Nev, what a dreamboat he was.