Rowena’s review of Rome (Marked Men #3) by Jay Crownover.

Sometimes the wrong choice can be just right . . .

Fun and fearless, Cora Lewis knows how to keep her tattooed “bad boy” friends at the Marked in line. But beneath all that flash and sass is a broken heart. Cora won’t let herself get burned again. She’s waiting to fall in love with the perfect man—a baggage-free, drama-free guy ready for commitment. Then she meets Rome Archer.

Rome Archer is as far from perfect as a man can be. He’s stubborn, rigid, and bossy. And he’s returned from his final tour of duty more than a little broken. Rome’s used to filling many roles: big brother, doting son, supersoldier—but none of those fit anymore. Now he’s just a man trying to figure out what to do with the rest of his life while keeping the dark demons of war and loss at bay. He would have been glad to suffer through it alone, until Cora comes sweeping into his life and becomes a blinding flash of color in a sea of gray.Perfect may not be in the cards, but perfectly imperfect could just last forever . . .

Holly brought these books to my attention because she thought I would enjoy them.  I had both Rule and Jet forever but I never read them.  But then I saw this book come up for review and I wanted to give it a try so I read this one without having read the other two books and I enjoyed it.  Crownover does a great job of writing this book as a standalone and I wasn’t confused or felt lost so it was all good in my hood.

Rome has just returned home from overseas and he’s suffering from grief over losing his brother and survivor’s guilt from his time at war.  He’s not sure what his role is now that he’s home since everything is so different.  He used to be the big brother that took care of everything and everyone around him but Rule doesn’t need him as much anymore, having started a life with his childhood friend Shaw and his other brother Remy, well Remy’s just gone.  He’s constantly in a bad mood and the bad mood is starting to make everyone around him suffer until Cora Lewis puts him in his place.

Cora is loyal and she’s fearless.  She takes care of those in her inner circle, even when it pisses them off and she doesn’t like anyone coming in and messing with her friends happiness.  Even if they’re related to people in her circle and love her friends just as much as she does.  So when she dumps her beer all over Rome Archer, she’s not sorry.  Rule may be pissed at her but she’s not sorry she did it because Rome needs to get that giant stick out of his ass and deal with his issues without taking everyone down with him.

Rome and Cora are complete opposites.  He’s clean cut and big all over while she’s a half pint with tattoos and jewels all over her body.  They shouldn’t work together, yet they do.

This story isn’t big on plot and twists and what not, it’s more character driven and I was okay with that.  I liked getting into both Cora and Rome’s heads.  There was enough conflict between the two of them to fill this book with a lot of things that kept me invested.  There were times when I thought the two of these guys needed a swift kick in the ass but in the end, I was glad that I read this one.  It’s made me want to read the other books in this series and I’m looking forward to doing that.

Rome and Cora were a nice mix, they complimented each other where it counted and I liked that they fought to be together.  I thought that Crownover was going to throw us all over the place with the return of Jimmy and all of the issues that both Rome and Cora still had to conquer but Crownover did a great job of bringing these two together and I was happy with the outcome of the book.  I would definitely recommend.

Grade: 4 out of 5

This book is available from William Morrow Paperbacks.  You can purchase it here or here in e-format.  This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.