True Devotion by Liora Blake Series: True #2
Series Rating:
Published by Simon and Schuster on June 22nd 2015
Genres: Romance, Contemporary
Pages: 334
Format: eARC
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Find out if rock sensation Simon can break through tough-girl Devon’s steely exterior—if he can keep his head on straight, that is—in this second sizzling romance in the True series!Devon Jenkins is a feisty blonde, and Simon Cole is the arrogant, sexy guitarist playing in her brother’s band. When they met for the first time, it went something like this: He hit on her, she shot him down, he made a lewd joke, she told him he was an idiot. In the two years since then, not much has changed. From the way Simon flirts shamelessly with any set of ovaries within a 100-mile radius, Devon knows the smartest thing she can do is keep an impenetrable wall between them. But sometimes the smart choice isn’t necessarily the right one…
I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Devon Jenkins and Simon Cole have been dancing around each other and flirting with each other for two years. Simon is a member of Devon’s brother’s band, so they see each other often. Usually this interaction takes the form of him flirting with her, her rejecting him, he makes a lewd joke, then goes about flirting with any woman nearby. Devon knows she should stay away from Simon. But knowing what she should do isn’t the same as being able to do it…
This book took me a while to get into. I just wasn’t connecting with the characters. Something about Devon was off-putting and I really didn’t see any connection between her and Simon at all. I think part of it was the first-person present tense; that’s never been a comfortable POV for me. It’s not only in first person present, but it was written as if Devon were actually talking to the reader directly.
Eventually, though, something clicked and I couldn’t stop reading it. Devon was emotionally damaged by her childhood and previous relationships. Simon isn’t damaged, and he’s ready to go all in on this relationship from the very beginning, but he’s so patient with Devon when she isn’t. I loved watching their relationship grow. Devon’s reactions every time she got another piece of Simon’s true self, and not the shallow man-whore she thought she’d pegged him as, were awesome. She thought she had him so figured out, then her brother would drop a piece of information, or Simon would say something that made it clear to her that she had no idea who this man was that she had been dismissing for years. She so badly wants what she thinks this relationship is becoming, but she just can’t get rid of her demons enough to believe it could be true.
For the most part, these two acted like grownups. Simon says something one night while he’s completely exhausted and emotionally drained over something that happened at work, and it comes out wrong and Devon gets upset. Instead of a big fight ending in one or both of them stomping off and refusing to listen to the other, they talked it out in about ten minutes and all was well again. One of my biggest romance pet peeves is people who just won’t take one minute to at least listen to what the other person has to say. And if there’s still something wrong, so be it. But at least listen for one minute.
Simon’s patience has a limit, though. And at one point, Devon does something so stupid he walks away. This was one development I had a problem with. The thing she does and the events leading up to it are so over-the-top ridiculous, that it seemed like it was just stuck in there for added conflict with no regard to whether or not it actually fit these characters. It really stuck out to me and took me out of the story.
dI really liked Trevor, Devon’s brother and his wife, Kate, and I’d like to see how they got together.
Your whole paragraph that starts with “Eventually, though,” – YES!!! All of that 🙂 I hope you like the first book as much as I did.