Year of the Category Challenge Review: Aftershock by Jill Shalvis

THE EARTH MOVED…LITERALLY!
If it hadn’t been for the earthquake, Amber Riggs would never have made love to a perfect stranger. And no doubt about it, fire inspector Dax McCall was perfect! Who else could have taught her the meaning of passion at a time like that?

AND NOW THE AFTERSHOCK…
Still, when Amber ran into him a year later she wasn’t sure how he’d react. She hadn’t meant to keep the news from Dax…. But he’d been out of town, and she’d been sort of relieved. After all, how do you tell the perfect man he has a perfect baby girl with a woman he doesn’t know from Eve?

Amber Riggs is a realtor looking at an old dilapidated building trying to figure out how to make it verbally attractive when it goes on the market. Dax McCall is a fire inspector that happens to see someone going into a building that is on his “watch” list for possible unsafe buildings. Dax follows the person into the building but before he finds the person the earth moves and shakes with a 6.5 earthquake. Dax manages to find Amber in the rubble of the basement and she in unharmed but the roof of the building has collapsed and the only thing keeping them from the death is a strong desk. Dax and Amber are thrown together at the last moments of their lives. They end up making love under the desk in an attempt to comfort each other. (Sounds cheesy – but the scene actually worked.) Luckily Dax’s sister had been on the phone with him moments before the quake and she had a general idea of the area he was in. Dax and Amber are saved but in the melee that follows Amber disappears.

Dax tries to find this woman that has struck a chord in him but to no avail. One year later Dax is accompanying his sister to the OB when he runs into Amber and her 3 month old baby girl. Dax is shocked to learn that he has a daughter but is more than ready to take care of her and Amber. The problem is, Amber has no desire to let Dax or any man into her life.

Amber was raised by her father who was in the military. Amber’s mother left when she was young and all Amber’s dad did after she was gone was talk about her mom’s wild ways and the fact that she was a slut – Amber’s dad was bound and determined for her to be the exact opposite. The problem with his plan was in his withholding his ways was that it made Amber had become a stiff, uncompromising, unfeeling woman until Dax came into her life.

When Amber found out she was pregnant she felt sure that she had inherited her mother’s wanton ways but she couldn’t be sorry that she had her wonderful bundle of joy. Unfortunately she runs to Mexico to give birth. She did try to contact Dax but hadn’t heard from him because he had an incompetent secretary. When she runs into Dax she is determined to keep him out of her life but Dax manages to work out a schedule with Amber that satisfies both of them. But Dax wants more of Amber and he won’t stop trying until he gets her.

This was an interesting book. I can see how Dax and Amber would come together in such a time. When they are both thinking they’re going to die and in each others arms for comfort. After that I have to say that Amber kind of annoyed me. She did try to contact Dax but really, not very vigorously. When she got back into town she should have planted herself on his doorstep and gone from there. She had a total stick up her ass and really needed to come down from the place she had been with her father and learn to love.

I really liked Dax. He looked for Amber after the earthquake and once he found her again he was totally there for her. He wanted her and he wanted his daughter and he was willing to sacrifice to get what he wanted. There was a time when he just couldn’t take the rejection from Amber any longer but it was a turning point in their relationship and it was touching.

I think it was a good read and worth the short time it took to read.

Rating: 4 out of 5

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