My job had a very specific goal: I found people who didn’t want to be found and delivered them to whoever employed me. After that, well, I tried not to think about what happened while I spent my money on things that made me happy. Resorts, men…I lived life by the seat of my pants because I never knew where I’d be the next week, or who I’d be looking for. When the head of a lesser-known criminal … criminal family hired me to find her son, I wasn’t sure what I was walking into. I had his photo, so I knew the man was hot with a capital H. But I expected the usual agitated scumbag I normally went after. Not some guy running a fishing charter and looking like he didn’t have a care in the world.
I might have been curious.
I might have gotten a little too close.
I might have done a lot of things I shouldn’t have.
Things that could get me killed this time.
But hey, life wasn’t always about making the right choices. It was about making good ones.
And Toby Cartwright was a great choice.
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This book had me crying. It has me crying at the sheer emotional intensity between Toby and Blair and also because this means farewell to the sexy Cartwright brothers and their amazing wives
Where to start with this review? How can I ever put into words the journey this book, this series has taken us on? I started the year with an amazing book and it looks like I’m finishing the year with one that is equally as amazing. So amazing I almost feel lost for words.
Fool’s Paradise is the fifth book in the Cartwright Brother’s series. Whilst it could be read as a stand alone, there is plenty of explanation dropped in to ‘catch you up’ on the story but not too many spoilers, for two reasons I would recommend reading the rest of the series first. Reason 1 is that in order to truly enjoy and get the most out of this book you need the full background story that has run through the other books. The second reason is that every single book is fantastic and each brother is swoon-worthy, smouldering hot and wondrous in their own way. You’d be missing out on what, to me, has been the best contemporary romance series of 2018.
I’ve been a little in love with Toby since we first saw his hidden heartache in Fool Me Twice, Book #1 of the series. In each successive book we’ve caught glimpses of a man who constantly puts his family before his own happiness. So this book was going to go one of two ways……… I was going to be broken in the best possible way, or I was going to be hugely disappointed.
“Toby was quickly becoming my everything. I didn’t want to let go.
I couldn’t.”
I’m still mopping up the tears from my ugly crying over how beautifully broken Toby and Briar are, so we can safely say there was no disappointment anywhere!
No longer able to face a life he never wanted to live, Toby has disappeared. Blair has been sent to find him and bring him home. The haunted look that was ever present in his eyes is no longer there, can Blair be the one to drag it back? With secrets and demons of her own, she knows just how soul destroying life can be.
” “I want my soul back.”
There was such utter desolation in his expression that it took every morsel of
strength within me not to cry.
This man bleeds goodness. Alongside his misery.”
I’ve already admitted that Toby has been lodged in my heart for what seems like forever. He is and always will be one of my favourite book boyfriends and I have been desperately waiting for his story. I knew Lilliana Anderson would need to write the heroine of all heroines, along with one pretty amazing plot, in order to meet the expectations I held for this book. Well let me tell you now that she did even better than I anticipated and this story literally blew me out of the water.
“Dread rolled of his body as he donned his old skin, the one we’d shed together.
I could see my Toby slipping further and further away.
My Toby……”
Toby is a damaged hero, one whose pain you feel and who will steal your heart before you know it. Blair is a broken heroine, and I’m stunned that I ended up loving her as much as, if not even more than, Toby. It needed someone special for me to hand my Toby over to, and Blair was just the perfect most imperfect heroine to do the job. I loved at the end how all her problems weren’t solved by love alone.
“He wanted me to get my head straight, to quite drinking, to quit using sex as a
bandaid to my mental anguish. Love myself first? I didn’t know if I could do that.
Didn’t know how…..”..
Love gave her the strength to tackle them, but professional help was still required…. just one of the many small touches that make this book feel real. Mad cap plot aside. I even forgave her for saying this about us maths teachers
“You’ve got to choose boring occupations that no one wants to talk about –
accountants, indurance brokers, maths teachers.”
I lost count of how many times this book made me cry. Now I just want to be left alone to wallow in the glory of it, to mourn the passing of this series, to basque in the ‘sunshine’ of the story and to soak up the love that flowed from it’s very soul.
I don’t just recommend this book to ALL of you, I recommend the entire series. These are the books that are so special you buy the paperback version too, so that you can fall in love with them all over again.
*4.5 Stars*
The final book of the Cartwright Brothers series. I’m sad that I’ve finished them all, and I really hope that we get more from Lilliana in the future. A little novella or something like that, down the track for the guys, so we can see what’s happening in their lives.
Anyways, onto this book itself, we finally get Toby’s story. The one who has intrigued us from the start. I wasn’t really sure what to expect after the way things ended in the previous book.
Toby and Blair’s story is an interesting one, given that Blair has been hired to find him, and bring him home. Pretty early on in the story there is a huge surprise regarding Toby, and whilst I figured it out before they revealed it, from the bits and pieces we were given, it was something I was totally not expecting to happen at all.
Once Blair and Toby cross paths, and are on their way back to the family, things get really interesting. We get plenty of time with them together, getting to know each other before there is any interference from the family.
Back in Torquay, things really start to amp up, and there is plenty of action. I loved getting back to Torquay and having everyone back together. I wasn’t sure how things would play out, and I won’t spoil anything, only to say you’re in for a ride.
This series has found a special place in my heart, and I highly recommend that you read it. Now….what am I going to now that I’ve finished?
I was prepared for Toby going into Fool’s Paradise; what I wasn’t ready for was to be taken by the spitfire softie that was Blair. I didn’t think anyone would be good enough for my (yep, he’s MINE) Toby, but Lilliana Anderson created perfection in the flawed but endearing woman that is Blair. She was THE one for Toby. These two came into each other’s lives with their own sets of baggage, but there was never any judgment that went on. I absolutely adored them together. They clicked in every aspect that two people in a relationship are supposed to click. Does that mean that they had an ideal coupling? Nope, but where they had missing pieces, the other simply slotted into place, as if those spots were waiting for them to come all along. We still get the usual suspects–aka the Cartwrights, from the matriarch to the latest generation–here, although it didn’t feel as if they were as prominently featured as in the past books. That doesn’t mean, though, that this falters in any way, shape, or form. If anything, Fool’s Paradise was the perfect series ender, one that brought everything full circle, in the absolute best way possible. Five-plus stars.
I am so sad to see this series end. When I started it, I really wasn’t sure I would like it because all of the male leads were ‘bad’ people, but once I started reading, I just fell in love with the Cartwright brothers. Toby has always been my favourite. I just knew he was something special and couldn’t wait to hear his story.
Well, the author didn’t let me down. His story was great, and the woman he ends up with was, too. You just knew that whoever he ended up with would have to be special, someone who could see past the things Toby had to do to protect his family and love him in spite of it. And Blair fit the bill to a T.
Great job, author. I loved this series so much and am so glad I took a chance on it.
This is the best one in the series.
I’ve always liked Toby he’s my fave out of the Brothers. I also thought he was the dealt the short end of the stick. I couldn’t imagine the burden of being the eldest child in the family and having the responsibility to look after everyone.
Needing a break he takes off and lives his life away from everyone. This is where Blair comes in she’s hired to find him. Well things get interesting very quickly.
These two are a totally bad ass couple. I absolutely loved this story, I always think the last book in the series should be the best and this one certainly is.
ARC received from author for an honest review
This book. This is the book I have been waiting for for the past year, ever since I read the first book in the Cartwright brother series.
And Ms Anderson has certainly not disappointed.
In fact, she has exceeded my expectations of what Toby Cartwright’s story would be.
It has been a day since I finished reading it, and I am still thinking about it.
There is so much that has lead up to this final installment of the series, so I feel that you will need to have read all the previous books to get the full impact of this book.
Gah, it is so hard to write this and not give anything away. I have waited so long for Toby to fall in love, and the woman he finds is perfect for im in every single way. She is so not what I expected, yet so much better than Holland for him.
If you have read my reviews of the previous books, you should remember that from the second book, I was not a fan of Nate Cartwright, and I have to say, still not much of a fan. He has redeemed himself just a tiny bit in this installment, but nope, still a d!ck!
I am now feeling very despondent that this series has come to it’s conclusion. Fool’s Paradise is a beautiful, emotional story, that I need to go back and reread already.
I can’t wait to see what Ms Anderson brings me next.
A beautiful, emotional, STUNNING ending I never expected! I won’t lie, when I first started Fool’s Paradise I was a bit disappointed. I LOVED Toby (Heck, I had an epic crush on him since Fool Me Twice!) but wasn’t too thrilled with our heroine at first. And then I learned her secrets and everything just…changed for me. I finally understood her and the way she was and not only did I end up liking her, I appreciated her even more.
This book was epic and so jaw-dropping! Nobody deserved happiness like Toby did. Well, him AND our heroine. And the danger and conclusion to the Cartwrights will leave readers on edge until the very end, and then, I swear it, they will SWOON, CRY WITH HAPPINESS, AND MISS THE EVER LOVING HECK OUT OF THIS FAMILY! I never saw what was coming and even though I at first, was expecting something different, I am so VERY glad in the end that this story was created just the way it was. I honestly think that Miss Anderson did an amazing job with Toby’s book and I can’t imagine it being any different. And once readers read it, they will love it too!
Fool’s Paradise gets a EPIC, JAW-DROPPING TEN MAGNIFICENT STARS!
I’m not crying you’re crying.
I can’t believe this is the end of the Cartwright Brothers Series, and what an end.
Since Feb this year, we fell in love with the Cartwright Brothers, all the drama, love, mystifies, mysteries, action and a lot of hot scenes.
We found the real sense of family in each of them, and as the family grows and they found the other half and our heart feels whole for them.
This book is the culmination of the whole series, and I couldn’t stop the tears, to finally see Toby find his match.
On book four he ran from the family to find his peace.
On this book some big secrets will be revealed and let me tell you, you going to fall more in love with Toby, he is a true gentleman.
Blair is a private investigator contract to find Toby and bring him home, and once she met him something dormant in her sparks.
Blair comes with a lot of baggage, does not care about her heart, drinks to forget, and works like a there is no tomorrow, she is the best in her field.
Both Blair and Toby have pretty evil demons of their own, and together they create something unique.
Ms Anderson created this last book like a journey of mind and souls, and with tears in my eyes, I’m saying see you soon to this fantastic brothers, alpha male to the max, and their amazing, beautiful families.
All the Stars!