This Man Series Book 1
WARNING: Spoilers and bad language. I’ve also written this after reading three books in the series so I know the full story, but I’ve tried not to give too much away.
Ava O’Shea is an interior designer who takes on a project at a country house. She expects the owner to be some balding, tweed-wearing, bumpkin. She gets the shock of her life when the lord of “The Manor” is actually a specimen of unadulterated, hot male who turns her brain to mush. He wants her and begins a relentless pursuit. It’s a shame this sex god, Jesse Ward, will not take no for an answer.
I recommended this book in a book group and it inspired me to re-read it.
Jesse is a hot, controlling, alpha male. At first I thought Ava’s going to be assertive with him, and not let him walk all over her, but she’s the opposite. She behaves a bit like a teenager: she likes to run and hide from the problem, she says she needs time to think, then moans when he stays away.
Ava allows him to make her feel like it’s her fault he behaves like a twat. (My apologies, I don’t usually use such language, but if you read this book you may agree it’s justified.) I want her to really make him grovel, to see that he can’t have her the way he wants, namely, next to him all the time. Then he says stuff like, “who has the power?”, and she just lets it ride as though that’s okay. Lasting and meaningful relationships are about balance and compromise, not one person having power over the other. That’s just destructive. But hey, she ignores it so the reader must too, it seems.
It’s quite clear he’s lying to her and hiding stuff, including her contraceptive pills. Who the hell thinks it’s okay to knock up someone they barely know, or that they won’t notice he’s trying to trick them? He also refuses to reveal his age. Alarm bells should be ringing, and they do for a a very short time, but then Ava ignores them.
Despite his dominating and manipulative ways, there’s just something about him that draws me in. It not just that the sex is burning up the pages hot. For some strange reason, he’s hard not to love despite his controlling behaviour. He balances the twattish stuff with such tender care that is so swoon worthy.
So, I’ve torn this book apart, yet this must be the third or fourth time I’ve read it. Why? Because there’s a deep, dark, part of me that secretly thrills at a man who knows what he wants and wants to make it his, and his alone. Combined with the tenderness he offers when he’s not being an arrogant, controlling, bastard, and I’m all soft and gooey. If this were real life I would have kicked him to the curb, but as it’s fiction I can ignore all the negative aspects of this guy and focus on what there is to swoon about. I just wish Ava would also do less swooning (yes, yes, hypocrite), and do a better job of standing up to him. She has such potential, but fails again and again.
Plot: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Feels: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Heat: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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