Don’t Tempt Me by Lori Foster (Guthrie Brothers #1)
Contemporary Romance
July 26, 2016
Harlequin
Reviewed by Helyce
From Goodreads: Jason Guthrie has no time for entanglements—between helping out his widowed brother and teenage nephew and getting his hometown back on its feet, his days are spoken for. But his nights are another story… And when his lovely new neighbor, Honor Brown, reluctantly accepts his help in remodeling her house, Jason finds himself wishing his handyman skills could knock down the defenses she keeps building around herself.
Martial arts teacher Sullivan Dean knows real danger when he sees it—even when it takes the form of the gorgeous blonde helping her friend move in across the street. After putting his wayward past behind him to focus on teaching control to troubled kids, Sullivan has learned to avoid party girls like Lexie Perkins. But Sullivan can’t seem to keep his hands off the real woman behind that flirty charm—or keep his heart from landing at her feet…
Honor has moved into a major fixer upper of a house right next door to Jason Guthrie who at present has his older brother Hogan and Hogan’s 17 year old son Colt living with him. Hogan and Colt are recovering from several issues that culminated with the death of Colt’s mom. Hogan, a bit down on his luck, has moved in with his brother in the hopes of rebuilding his life. All three men happen to be outside when Honor arrives in a loaded-down rental truck with her friend Lexie, ready to move in. The men lend a hand, moving boxes and furniture, being neighborly. But Honor seems beside herself at having to accept their help, preferring to do everything on her own. Lexie seems much more comfortable around the men, flirting a little and very happy to let them do the heavy lifting.
I found it hard to warm up to Honor for a good part of this book. You learn enough to know why she feels the way she feels and why she is the way she is early on in the book. But even knowing about her childhood challenges, it was hard for me to relate to some of her actions. It’s one thing to want to be independent, but I guess I just couldn’t relate to her seemingly ridiculous need to outright refuse help in things that she had absolutely no idea how to do when the person offering to help was obviously highly capable and talented.
I adored Jason, though. The strong family values that he holds were evident from the beginning as he interacted with his brother and nephew. You could sense the attraction he had for Honor and how he really struggled to feel her out and say and do the right thing in order to make a good impression. While Honor held tight to some of her control issues, she managed to let her guard down enough to let Jason in; their mutual attraction taking over and unable to deny.
Lexie, Honor’s dearest friend and one of the few people who knows all the nitty-gritty details about Honor’s life plays a major role in getting Honor to trust and let other people in and beyond the walls that she’s built to keep herself safe and sane. Honor is dealing with difficult family issues and she’s worried about her grandfather who is close to death. The little remaining family she has left treat her badly and she didn’t often stand up to them, which didn’t make a lot of sense to me when she was so strong with every other aspect of her life. In these times Lexie is her biggest support.
Lastly we have Sullivan, who we meet a bit of the way through the book when some out of nowhere conflict is introduced I imagine to substantiate some earlier inference to the fact that the neighborhood Honor moved into wasn’t really safe. He’s on the scene when Lexie and Honor arrive home and Lexie is immediately smitten. Though their initial smexy time occurs off page, it’s clear that Lexie has met her match and is not at all done with Sullivan. Unfortunately, Sullivan is not looking for love or permanence in any way.
That theme seemed to be the case for both our couples in varying degrees. And since the whole story seems to take place over a fairly short period of time, I found the changes and about-face both couples made with respect to taking their relationship to the next level to border on “insta-love” status. While Honor and Jason are definitely the primary couple with Lexie and Sullivan floating around in the background, both couples seem to fall very quickly and get over many insecurities too easily.
Having said that, Ms. Foster does give us a lovely romance. I did find myself championing Honor when she finally gets a backbone and stands up to her horrific family members. I liked Lexie from the beginning, but Sullivan’s quick change to a committed relationship with Lexie verged on unbelievable for me. Evening it all out are Jason’s brother Hogan and Hogan’s son Colt. Hogan is a broken man and he is picking up the pieces of his life while at the same time trying to be there for his son who is grieving the loss of his mother. Their situation and story was very interesting and I gather Hogan will be featured in a book where we’ll get his background story in greater detail, because it’s a doozy! It’s hinted at who his love interest might be and I’m really happy about that and look forward to more of Colt as well!
I’m a huge fan of Lori Foster so picking up this new series was really a no brainer. I’m sure I read the blurb, but by the time I began reading this story, I didn’t remember that there would be two couples featured. I don’t mind a dual couple situation, but in this story I think Sullivan and Lexie’s relationship felt really forced and a bit overshadowed by everything that Honor was going through. I may have be able to buy into their romance if we’d had a chance to understand where Sullivan was coming from . It’s partially explained but awfully rushed. Perhaps the author will enlighten us further in the next book.
And I do look forward to the next book. As a first book, I can see the need to introduced all the players and give the lay of the land. In this Foster does a great job; however trying to also give us two love stories on top of that took may have taken a bit of the focus away from the romance especially in the case of Lexie and Sullivan.
Grade: C
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