Summer with the Soldier (Holiday Encounters Book 4)

Summer with the Soldier is book four in the Holiday Encounters series by Amy Lamont. I want to admit that when I started this series, I only intended to read the first three books that are in the box set. But I fell in love with this group of women and the men they fell in love with. I had to follow through and read Jade’s story. Oh my gosh! What a book this was! I just fell in love with these two!

Jade Roberts originally dreamed up the bet to get her friend Emma out of her rut. But then her two other friends found the man of their dreams as well. Jade is twenty two years old and a college graduate. But, unlike her friends, she’s still trying to find her path in life. So, she’s just working temp jobs to keep herself busy. She feels like her life is lacking something but she can’t figure out what it is.

Every year to kick off the summer season, Jade throws a big party at her parents Long Island beach house. When Jade sees a man walk out onto the deck, at first she can’t see who it is. But time just seems to stop. She can’t look away. As she gets closer, she realizes it’s her friend Kate’s older brother, Logan Murphy, who is home on leave from his deployment. She grew up with Logan, they were always close. But this isn’t the Logan of her childhood. This Logan’s features are hardened, blank. She can’t imagine what he’s had to deal with.

“The Logan I knew and loved for as long as I could remember had been replaced by this blank faced soldier and I did not like it. Not one little bit. From here on out I was making it my mission to find my Logan.”

Jade can’t understand her reaction to Logan. Why she is feeling this way about him now after all these years. What she also realizes is that when she is near him, he seems to relax a bit and she sees glimpses of the old Logan.

Then, that night, everything changes between them. They share a night of passion that changes everything. But, do they want to risk their friendship with continuing a relationship? Or would they be better off just going back to being friends?

“I needed to be near Logan more than I needed my next breath. For whatever reason, he remembered who he was when I was near. And I wasn’t going to examine too closely why it thrilled me beyond reason that I was the one who gave him that.”

This book had all the swoons! Logan, the tough, hardened soldier, was the sweetest, most romantic man ever. I’ve actually had great luck with main characters named Logan! The things he did just melted me. Don’t even get me started on the hotness factor. These two together steamed up the pages.

I loved every page of Jade and Logan’s story. The ending was the sweetest. It wrapped up this series with a great big bow. There was talk at the end of this book of an additional book that goes back to Emma’s story but I haven’t been able to find out anything about it so I’m still trying to figure that out. If there is another book, I’m all in!