Reviewer: Tracy Dazed by Kim Karr
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: April 1st 2014
Genres: New Adult
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Jagger Kennedy never went looking for fame, he just fell into it. After scoring a major modeling contract, his clean-cut good looks and charm catapulted his career. But when his actress girlfriend breaks his heart, he moves to L.A. to try his hand at acting. He needs to make a change, and the last thing he’s looking for is love…
Aerie Daniels is a woman in control … until she meets Jagger. Her surprising connection with him leaves her stunned, and it’s unlike anything she’s ever felt. But just when she lets her walls fall, she makes a startling discovery about him that breaks her fragile heart into a million pieces.
To keep from losing the one woman he can’t bear to be without, Jagger is willing to give up anything—including his career. But even that might not be enough to regain Aerie’s shattered trust…
Aerie Daniels is the kind of woman who uses organization to keep herself grounded. She can easily get caught up in things and the structure of her life helps keep her level. She doesn’t really date as she had a bad experience when she was 16 and never really recovered from it.
Enter Jagger Kennedy. He’s beautiful and hot as hell. He wants to get to know Aerie better but she’s not sure that’s wise. Against her better judgment she lets Jagger into her life and next thing you know she’s enjoying life in a whole new way. She’s trying new things and opening her heart to possibilities. That’s until she finds out that Jagger has been hiding the fact that his ex-girlfriend, the one he was going to ask to marry him, is not only in LA but that she’s up for a huge acting role opposite Jagger in a movie. Now Aerie’s not sure what she was thinking but she’s not about to stay open and risk getting her heart broken once again.
This was a great little story. We got to meet Aerie in the earlier Connections books but we never got to know her that well. That’s because really, no one gets to know Aerie that well, except her best friend, Dahlia. Finding out about Aerie’s past – not only with her parents and her beloved uncle, but also the boy she thought herself in love with when she was just 16 – shed a whole new light on her and how I viewed her. She was definitely a private person but she lived almost in a self-induced prison. Sure she was out and about but she never truly opened up to anyone. With Jagger she could let the walls come down and see a whole new life. Now when she loses trust in Jagger I thought it was a bit sudden and a bit overboard but I was happy with the resolution of it all and that made up for it.
I loved Jagger. He was just a care-free kind of guy. While some might think he was lazy and irresponsible what I saw was a guy who came from money but refused to rely on his parents for their money. I highly admired his determination to do it all on his own and though it hadn’t always been easy he’s managed to keep an optimistic view of life and that made me love him even more.
This was a novella so it wasn’t all that long but it got across all of the messages it needed to and gave us a wonderful glimpse into the romance of these two great characters. Definitely a satisfying read.
Rating: 3.5/3.75 out of 5
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