Reviewer: Tracy Hold Me by Courtney Milan
Series: Cyclone #2
Also in this series: Trade Me, Trade Me
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: October 25th 2016
Genres: Contemporary Romance
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Series Rating:
Jay na Thalang is a demanding, driven genius. He doesn’t know how to stop or even slow down. The instant he lays eyes on Maria Lopez, he knows that she is a sexy distraction he can’t afford. He’s done his best to keep her at arm’s length, and he’s succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.
Maria has always been cautious. Now that her once-tiny, apocalypse-centered blog is hitting the mainstream, she’s even more careful about preserving her online anonymity. She hasn’t sent so much as a picture to the commenter she’s interacted with for eighteen months—not even after emails, hour-long chats, and a friendship that is slowly turning into more. Maybe one day, they’ll meet and see what happens.
But unbeknownst to them both, Jay is Maria’s commenter. They’ve already met. They already hate each other. And two determined enemies are about to discover that they’ve been secretly falling in love…
Maria is looking forward to seeing her brother who’s been living in Switzerland. He’s running late so tells her where to go on the Berkley campus to meet him. He tells her to ask for his friend Jay and wait there. Of course when Maria, who is a girly-girl from head to spiked-heeled toe knocks on Jay’s lab door she gets confronted with an asshole. The guy is rude and assumes that she’s an empty-headed bimbo because of the way she dresses. Maria gives him shit for it – especially after she finds out that the man is Jay, her brother’s friend.
Jay is fascinated by Maria. He sooooo doesn’t want to be but he is. She gives him shit constantly – that he thoroughly deserves, not that he knows that – and he actually likes sparring with her despite the fact he thinks she’s a huge distraction for her brother and his work.
Maria has been texting a guy, who goes by the name Actual Physicist, for the past year and a half. He is kind and funny and really gets her – he knows her as Em. She hasn’t shared any personal info with him and he hasn’t shared any with her. Despite that she’s got extreme feelings for the guy. When she alludes to them meeting she’s shut down but eventually they decide to talk on the phone. Before that can happen, however, Maria and Jay figure out that they are Em and Actual Physicist and the shit hits the fan. Can they reconcile their current hate relationship with the one they have via text and meet somewhere in the middle or is it too late?
When I first started reading this book I honestly hated Jay. He was such a douche! Judgmental and holier-than-thou – omg I just wanted to slap the boy! I loved how Maria put him in his place and didn’t take his shit. He did grow on me somewhat later in the book but unfortunately for Jay I never really liked him all that much. He turned out to be pretty nice in the end but still…I couldn’t forget the earlier Jay.
Maria, for all of her outer confidence, has some serious abandonment issues. Her parents had kicked her out of the house when she was 12 years old because she’s transgender. She went to live with her very catholic grandmother and wasn’t sure what to expect when she knocked on her door. Her reaction to Maria was one of my favorite parts of the book – she totally accepted her with open arms. Maria asked her grandmother that night if she thought God could make her into a girl, if that was the kind of miracle he did. Her grandmother’s response was, “I think he already did.” Cue tears and blubbering. I just love that so much! Go grandma! Ahem. Anyway, back on track…by the time this book is written Maria is post-surgery but she still lives with what her parents did and she can’t seem to think that Jay wouldn’t someday leave her for one reason or another. I can understand her thinking as what her parents did was harsh, believe me. I guess I just wish that I had known that the book was more about the abandonment issues than it was the hating each other thing – although that did play a huge part as well. IDK, it was almost like the story was split into two different parts and I found that a bit disconcerting.
Anyway, the book was good and had some really great parts to it. Though I didn’t like it as much as book one (mostly because of Jay) I still enjoyed it thoroughly and I’m looking forward to book three in the series.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
I have only read ONE Courtney Milan book. It was a historical romance novella called Talked Sweetly to Me and I loved it, but I haven’t read anything else. I have had the first book in this series on my TBR. I’m sorry this one wasn’t as good as you were hoping for.
I enjoyed the first book in this series and have been looking forward to reading this one, too. Thanks for your review, Tracy.