ARC Mini-Review: Just One Summer (The Kingston Family #9.5)

Just One Summer (The Kingston Family #9.5)

Carly Phillips

Blurb:

Gabriella Davenport is a gorgeous, twenty-two-year-old virgin with a trust fund, vacationing in the Hamptons for the summer and running from family pressure to marry someone she doesn’t like, let alone love.

Maddox James is a sexy bar manager, older than Gabby by a decade. Though he made his fortune on Wall Street, he has returned to his working-class roots with a healthy distrust of wealthy women.

Themes:  Contemporary, Novella

Rating: 4 stars

Heat Rating: 

Review:

I was kind of surprised when I learned this book was coming, because despite having met Maddox in Zach’s story I didn’t realize he’d get his own HEA and I was thrilled by it.  Carly Phillip’s long running and twisty Dare/Kingston series has just earned another branch as she introduces the Sterling family with Remy and this little crossover giving us a bit of a taste with Maddox was a treat until we get Remy’s novel in a few months.  Maddox James was a bright and shining star on the rise in the world of wall street until he realized he was losing himself in the darkness of that world and moved to the Hamptons to live a simpler life.  That life includes managing The Back Door, a bar and grille owned by Zach Dare and Remy Sterling, a job that gives him a way to live a simple life and still feel productive, but he still knows money and trouble when she sits her gorgeous ass down at his bar one night. Gabriella Davenport is so over the fake and pretentious life she is forced to live with her parents and decides that a night out drowning her sorrows at the fun bar in the Hamptons is just what she needs, but when she wakes the next morning, having been given a safe scape from her family by the sexy bar manager, she is willing to beg and plead to get him to give her safe haven while she finds a way to escape her life. The more time Gabby is in Mad’s home the more she shows him that not all women are cut from the same cloth and she just might be the sweet and loving woman that she appears to be, even if she does come from the kind of background that creates the worst kinds of women. Can he open his heart and move on from past heartbreak in order to open himself to the love that Gabby offers or will those looking to tear her from his arms come between them before either of them get the chance to truly find their long-term love?  I truly enjoyed this short love story, both of the characters interesting, with rich backstories and the kinds of moral strength that make Carly’s characters so perfect.  Gabby seems in the beginning like she is just the poor little rich girl running away from home, but its obvious she was never made to live in that world and when she finds a champion to give her a haven to live her life the way she needs to she finds not only her backbone, but finally begins to thrive like a flower finally coming out form under the choking shade of weed-filled garden.  Maddox has a lot of hangups about his past, and though he is grumpy and surly most of the time, he is obviously a good man and when he opens his eyes and sees what a good woman Gabby is, he grabs her with both hands and refuses to let her go.  The pull between them is evident from the very moment they are in one another’s presences despite the obstacle they put in their path, but when they finally come to accept their needs, boy watch out for that wildfire. I am dying to see more of them in the coming Sterling series (Just One More Moment) where we will get to watch Remy fall under some woman’s spell and meet the rest of his siblings.  Carly Phillip’s ability to captivate reader’s, even in a short story like Just One Summer, shows her skill with words and love, and her mastery of the romance genre and I for one will never miss a release.

*eARC provided by author for the purpose of an honest and unbiased review.  No compensation was provided.