Reviewer: Rowena Coming Undone (Brown Family, #2) by Lauren Dane
Series: Brown Family #2
Also in this series: Laid Bare (Brown Family, #1), Laid Bare , Coming Undone (Brown Family, #2), Never Enough (Brown Family, #4), Drawn Together, Inside Out
Publisher: Penguin, Berkley Heat
Publication Date: January 5, 2010
Point-of-View: Third Person
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 291
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Series Rating:
A new novel of "toe-curling" erotic romance from the national bestselling author of Laid Bare.
After his parents' death, Brody gave up a promising career to care for his family. Now, with his siblings grown, Brody owns his own business, and for the first time in years he's alone. Elise has come to Seattle with her daughter to find peace. After years as a world-famous ballerina-and trapped in a marriage gone bad-she's looking for neither love nor attention. But she finds both in the handsome, honest man who befriends her with no strings attached.
Brody and Elise discover in each other the wild, physical passion they need. But it'll take a shadow from Elise's past to make them look beyond what they need-to what they truly desire.
I started my Summer Reading challenge with one of Holly’s picks and I’m happy to report that I really liked it. I read Coming Undone by Lauren Dane and I completely adore the Brown family.
So this book features the eldest of the Brown siblings, Brody as he falls head over heels in love with his new single Mom neighbor, Elise Sorenson. Brody spent most of his life taking care of his younger siblings after their parents died and he’s never thought much on it. He just did what needed to be done. He’s been doing it all his life and being the head of his house, it’s second nature for him to boss his loved ones around. He loves to take care of those that he loves and the more time he spends with Elise and Rennie, the more he wants to take care of them…and that goes into overdrive when Elise and Rennie need some protecting.
Elise is new in town because she needed a fresh start. She’s coming off a really bad marriage that came with a lot of emotional baggage and she needs to leave all of that baggage in New York so that she can give her daughter a bright future. Her late husband’s in-laws are giving her trouble no matter where she goes and it’s getting exhausting fighting them to keep her daughter. They’re rich and they’re mean and they blame her for everything. It’s important to her that she fight them on her own. That she handle her own business but having Brody’s support means the world to her. She hadn’t planned on falling in love with Brody but it happened and while their relationship isn’t perfect, it was still theirs.
The romance between Brody and Elise was a grown-up kind of romance and I really enjoyed it. I liked seeing them come together and I really liked seeing how close Brody got to Rennie. They bonded really early on and the love that Brody felt for both of his girls was cute. I liked getting to know Brody’s siblings through their interactions with Brody.
I really connected with Elise’s character because of the way that she always thought about Rennie first. She was a good Mom who did the best that she could and you can see how genuine her love for her kid and her parents were. The way that she reacted to Raven is how I, as a mother, would have reacted and even though Raven was a freaking shit for the way that she treated Elise, Elise handled her a lot differently than I would have but even so, as awful as Raven was, I didn’t hate her. Her jealous game was strong. I wanted to punch her when she tried to get in between Elise and Brody but I got over it once Raven did.
Overall, this was a great story. The sex was freaking steamy as shit and I really felt that Brody and Elise were in love so kudos on Lauren Dane for giving us a sweet romance with lots of heat. I’m definitely interested in continuing this series.
Grade: 4.25 out of 5
Brown Family
What a lovely review you have here darling. I love a grown-up romance, and this pairing does sound fantastic to read. And this is an author I NEED to read so badly. I think I am going to go buy book one. 🙂
I like this series, too. Glad you enjoyed it, Rowena.