Somebody’s Lover by Jasmine Haynes
Grade – B-
Hotness Level – Inferno
Kink Level – No kink
Genre – Contemporary
Series – The Jackson Brothers #1
Reviewed by Anne
Taylor is a widow with two school aged kids and strong ties to her husband’s family. Her husband has been gone for three years and she’s at a new normal. However, she’s finally coming out of her numbness and really missing being with a man and having sex. She has no desire to date or have long term connections, though, so she drops the kids off at her in laws and dresses up and heads out to a bar no PTA mom would ever go to, looking for hookup.
She’s in the middle of having second thoughts about the guy hitting on her when her brother-in-law, Jace, shows up and takes exception to what she’s doing. He comes over and cock blocks her. Wait, what’s the female equivalent of cock blocking? Whatever, he scares the guy off by pretending to be her husband. She’s actually ok with that, due to her second thoughts and all. However, she is justifiably pissed at his holier than thou reaction to her desire to have sex. She sets him straight about her wants and needs and suddenly they see each other in a different light, and Jace volunteers to be her one night stand.
This is a hard one for me to grade. It was a good story and it was hot, with really well written sex scenes. I thought it was overly dramatic, though, and there were several little things that bothered me.
First, the good. I enjoyed the chemistry between Jace and Taylor. I liked their family’s get togethers and the way everyone supported each other. While it annoyed me how concerned everyone was with not upsetting Jace’s father, I can see that was probably realistic. I also really enjoyed how their relationship unfolded. They didn’t have stupid fights, they were just working their way toward what they were going to do and how they would go forward.
Unfortunately the main conflict in the story was an issue that was seriously inflated an because no one talked about it. It’s not much of a spoiler, so I’ll put it out there. Jace was drunk and showed up late (or not at all) on the job the day his brother, Lou died. Instead of waiting for Jace, against company/family policy, Lou decided to work alone, up a tree, with a chainsaw. Horrible accident ensues and Lou dies. Jace thinks it’s all his fault. He knows his dad thinks it’s all his fault, too. He knows this because he can tell. They never talked about it, but his dad treats him differently now. I just felt like there was more overly dramatic angst than this issue deserved. It could have been resolved with a 5 minute conversation with ANYONE. A therapist. Your mom. Taylor. Me. I could have set him straight. But he never asked anyone.
Another issue I had with the story was that it made Taylor and Jace’s HEA at the expense of her first marriage. You know, when she falls for Jace she realizes NOW she knows what love is! Everything that came before was pale in comparison to this! I didn’t like that the first marriage was made to be lesser in order to justify that theirs was TWU WUV.
I also got pulled out of the story by condom care. Once Jace threw a used condom in a lake. That’s nasty! Why even mention it if you’re going to litter? Another time he flushes a used condom. I didn’t think you were supposed to do that. I thought a garbage can was proper disposal. I’d google it, but I’m scared of the unintentional results and images that might pop up.
And then there’s first scene in the bar where Jace pretends that Taylor is his wife. In turn, to try to make him uncomfortable, Taylor says something being willing to go home with him if he promises to stop beating her. I thought that was a really inappropriate joke. I also thought it was concerning that she’s in a bar yelling about him not hitting her any more and leaves with him and no one seems concerned.
If you can ignore those things, I really enjoyed their story. I guess it says a lot about how well the sex scenes were written and how much I appreciate that. But so many little things bothered me, and unfortunately THAT’s what I remember about the story.
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