Marco Solis knows that if he gets too close to people they disappear. His parents were deported back to Mexico when he was fourteen, his fiancée married someone else while he was in the military, and now his business partner’s spending more time with his girl than with Marco. For better or worse, that’s how Marco meets Carrie Garner. She’s legitimately model-hot. She’s also a nut—a wild, artsy, unapproachable nut. So why is Marco so interested in cracking her shell?

Although Carrie Garner is a natural in front of the camera, her dream is to make it as a photographer. Soon she’ll be heading to Spain for design school, and she’ll miss her best friend, Hayden, like crazy. She’ll even miss Hayden’s boyfriend, Beck—but she won’t miss Beck’s partner, Marco. Bossy, brooding, and annoyingly sexy, Marco really pushes her buttons, though he obviously wouldn’t mind pushing her buttons in an up-against-the-wall, hard-and-fast kind of way. The craziest part is, if Carrie lets him do that, well . . . she may never want to leave.

Includes an excerpt from another Loveswept title.

Marco owns a tequila bar with his friends Cade and Beck.  They were all Navy SEALS and now they work together once again.  Marco met Carrie when she came in for a tequila tasting with Hayden, who is now Beck’s fiancé.  He was attracted to Carrie from the first minute but Carrie shut his flirting down pretty much instantaneously.  He just figured that she thought he wasn’t good enough for her.

Carrie’s always been attracted to Marco but she doesn’t like to admit it to herself.  When Marco first flirted with her she felt like he just thought she was a dumb bimbo and blew him off.  As she gets to know him, now that they’re planning Beck and Hayden’s engagement party together, she sees that she was wrong about him.  Sparks fly when they’re together but Carrie’s leaving to go to school in Spain for 9 months so she’s not about to get involved with anyone.

Marco and Carrie decide to start a fling and will end it when she leaves for Spain.  Little did they know that they’d fall in love.  Of course neither are confident enough to tell the other so this leaves each of them heart-broken.

This was a cute, light read from Jamieson.  Despite the feelings that both Marco and Carrie carried with them about themselves I thought that the author did a great job of not dragging the story down with their issues.  They were talked about and definitely were a major focus of the book but when I read the last page I wasn’t depressed with a sad knot in my chest.  She dealt with both the hero and heroine’s  personal issues in a way that made it emotional but not over-bearing.

Marco was a fantastic character.  I really liked him so much as my heart went out to all that he’d been through in his life when he was an adolescent.  He’d moved on and made something of himself – something he could be proud of and it showed in his whole being.  I loved that he saw Carrie as others didn’t.  He saw in her the bright shining light she was and then made it even brighter with his love.

Carrie had some serious self-esteem issues even though she was a model.  She felt like the tall gangly kid she’d always been while growing up and didn’t see herself as gorgeous.  It wasn’t a vanity thing – wanting people to tell her she’s gorgeous.  It was the opposite, in fact and it was just how she felt. She also felt that since her entire family was into business and had great careers that she hadn’t done anything productive in her life – which wasn’t true at all.  I liked her character a lot as she worked on her self-esteem and the feelings of not being good enough for her family.

Overall I found Hot Shot to be a thoroughly enjoyable book and I’m looking forward to reading what happens with Marco’s friend Cade in the next book.

Rating: 4 out of 5