Sweet and sultry, hot and wild…that’s desire, Louisiana-style. And there’s no one better to explore it with than one of the Bayou Bachelors… for Henry’s sake. He wants to be part of his father’s law firm, and his parents will never approve of an interracial marriage. Better to bruise his heart than ruin his life.
Henry can’t forgive Sonja, and doubts that he can trust her again. But learning that they’re going to be parents means there’s no avoiding each other. Springtime on the bayou is already steamy enough…now they’re living in the same small space while their damaged house is repaired. And with each passing day they’re getting a little more honest. A lot more real. And realizing that nothing—not even New Orleans at Mardi Gras—glows brighter than the desire they’re trying to deny…
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Good book. This story begins shortly before the end of the first book, Fully Dressed, so there is a little overlapping activity. At the beginning of the first book, Sonja and Henry are just hours away from their wedding. On the day of the wedding, Sonja runs, leaving Henry at the altar. This book takes on the aftermath of that action and the changes in their relationship.
As this book starts, Sonja returns to New Orleans three weeks after her non-wedding and comes face-to-face with Henry. He is understandably angry. He had no idea that Sonja had reservations about their marriage, so her desertion was a total surprise. They exchange some pretty harsh words. Sonja blames herself for the disaster, but she also holds resentment toward Henry for keeping secrets from her. Sonja doesn’t have much room to complain, though, because she kept some things from him, too – not the least of which is that she is pregnant.
It is clear from their first meeting that the sparks between Sonja and Henry have not died, and neither one is happy about it. Each would like to cut ties altogether, but Fate decrees otherwise. First, they must work together to fix their flooded home before they can sell it. Because both of them invested everything in the house and the wedding, they are stuck sharing the tiny guest house on the property. Second, Sonja’s pregnancy means they must find a way to co-parent their baby. This means they must face their past.
I enjoyed seeing Henry and Sonja work their way back to each other. Both had to take serious looks at their past relationship and admit to their mistakes. The biggest thing was facing the fact that their former relationship was more superficial than either wanted to admit. Everything looked great on the surface, but there were significant underlying issues that they never talked about. One of those issues was that of race. Sonja is black, and Henry is white. It makes no difference to their love for each other, but Henry’s parents are not happy and make it obvious. Unfortunately, most of their attitude falls on Sonja when Henry isn’t around to witness it. The last straw is their threat to disown Henry if he marries her, and she refuses to ruin his life. Sonja also worries that Henry might have similar attitudes (well-buried) thanks to his upbringing. On his side, Henry neglected to tell Sonja about his ex-fiancée’s stalker tendencies, leaving Sonja blindsided when Dierdre confronted her right before the wedding. Both are left with some serious trust issues.
There were a lot of angry words and accusations thrown at each other at the beginning. Dealing with that anger forced Henry and Sonja to talk about things they had avoided before. It was a slow process, but they finally started to reach below the surface of their previous relationship and communicate. It isn’t easy, and there is the occasional regression, but they do make progress. Complicating matters is the attraction that still has a tight grip on them. Giving into it adds to the pain and confusion. It takes a while for them to realize that the love they share is still there. There are some sweet scenes of them together as that love grows and matures to the point where they can admit their feelings to each other. I liked the ending as they moved toward a future together.
A highly passionate interracial romance about how two soulmates reconnect after what is supposed to be their happy-ever-after blows up. As they rebuild their home of a flood, they rebuild an unlikely relationship and friendship through the most difficult of circumstances.
Thanks NetGalley for an advanced copy.
There is a huge level of frustration I’m having with this series and this author. In both the first book, Fully Dressed, and this book I really love the concept of the stories. The characters and their personalities are people I want to read about. But there always seems to be something missing.
Let me get into what I really like about this story. The author really tries to take bigotry head on. Henry knows his parents are racist and maybe haven’t treated Sonja as an equal, but he doesn’t know the extent of it because Sonja has kept a lot of their interactions from him. For her part, Sonja has a deep-seated fear that Henry can’t really be so far removed from his parents’ views since they did, after all, raise him. This all leads to the real root of their problem…they don’t talk to each other. At least not about things that matter. Which has led to a rather large lack of trust on both sides.
I like how Sonja and Henry’s relationship looked great to all of those on the outside. And even from the inside; if they didn’t look too deep inside themselves, the couple was able to pretend all was great. They could have lived their whole lives happily together. But happy does not necessarily equal satisfied. Although Henry and Sonja probably do belong together, they had a lot of work to do before they should have been walking down the aisle.
Of course, this brings up all my frustration. This storyline is a bit of a different angle than I’m used to reading in a love story. There was potential for so much complexity and emotion. But something gets in the way. The writing tends to be choppy and the conversations can jump around a bit which breaks up the flow of the story. There are also a lot of repetitive bits that are just downright annoying.
I also want to address the character of Deidre. I’m going to try to do this without spoilers. I think the fact that it is mentioned over and over and over that the characters in this story do not believe Deidre has a mental health issue is a great disservice to the readers. Deidre absolutely DOES have a mental condition, whether it’s by nature or nurture it does not matter. To dismiss her actions as those of someone who was “just spoiled” growing up is dangerous.
So here’s my quandary. I truly hate to keep reading this series if it forces me to give this author a bad review. She must be doing something right since I really want to learn more about Jena and possibly Jeb…which I assume will be in the next book. Reading the author’s bio I am really impressed with her and respect her. It makes me think her stories that have more to do with the military life would be a smoother read??? I’m not sure. I guess I’ll have to see where my head is at when the next one in this series comes out.
One last thing. I am not hanging all my dissatisfaction on the author here. There is a reason there are editors in the publishing world. This is not a self-published book so I’m quite confident an editor has gone over this story before it was put to print. Since the storyline and ideas are all there and my biggest issue with the story is the flow and some missing pieces, it is absolutely the editor’s job to work with the author to fix these things. Rant over.
2.5 stars
**I received an ARC of this book courtesy of Net Galley and the publisher. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and given freely**
https://allingoodtimeblog.wordpress.com/2018/09/11/bare-devotion-book-review/