Title: Never For Him
Series: Hope Valley
Author: Jessica Prince
Contemporary Romance; Small Town Romance
Serenity Ryan was ready for a fresh start. When the chance at a new life came knocking on her door, she was all too happy to answer. She had a new job, a new apartment, and a new outlook on life. She also had a bone deep crush on the last remaining bachelor of Alpha Omega. He was the brooding hero in every love story ever written, and she wanted nothing more than to be the heroine who healed his wounds.
Hunter McCann knew better than most what it felt like to lose what’s most important. He’d lost family to tragedy, his brothers in battle, and the heart of the only woman he’d ever loved. To protect himself from ever having to experience that kind of pain again, he erected walls around his heart. Then a fiery woman with a loud mouth and a wild spirit decided to scale those walls.
Hunter never wanted to love again, but something about Serenity Ryan has grabbed on and refuses to let go. When danger comes to Hope Valley and threatens her safety, Hunter is determined to protect the woman he’s falling for. Because this is one loss he knows he can’t come back from.
**Hope Valley is a series of interconnected, standalone, small town romances.**
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Just then, I felt it, the prickling sensation skating across my skin that could only mean one thing.
I knew what I’d find even before I cast my gaze toward the entrance, and the mere sight of him never failed to make my heart race and my palms grow clammy.
The man actually made me nervous, which was something I hadn’t thought possible given just how jaded I was. The things I’d done and seen when it came to the opposite sex had a way of stripping off the rose-colored glasses. But I could say with unwavering certainty that I’d never met a man like Hunter McCann in my life.
The first time I laid eyes on him, he’d left me breathless. Though, the same couldn’t have been said had the shoe been on the other foot. I hadn’t exactly been at my best at the time, what with having been kidnapped by a complete moron and all, but when Hunter busted into the warehouse where my sister and I were being held by what had to be the stupidest criminal on the face of the earth, an instant crush had formed.
Sure, he hadn’t been the only one who came riding in to rescue us, in fact, he had the whole band of Alpha Omega badasses with him, and believe me when I say there was more eye candy to behold with that crew than one woman could handle. However, I’d only had eyes for him.
It wasn’t just his looks, although, there was plenty of fine to go around. Everything from his sharp, masculine features to his rock-hard, muscle-bound physique looked like they’d been carved out of granite. If I’d had to guess, he cleared six feet by a good few inches, making me, a woman who stood at 5’7 and had a penchant for sassy stilettos, feel positively tiny in his presence. Just from looking at him, I knew he’d have been more than capable of tossing me over his broad shoulders and carrying me off to his lair, and man did I wish he would.
But in spite of how gorgeous he was, what really drew me to him were his eyes. The most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen. A blue so crisp they reminded me of melting glaciers. Those liquid pools carried such intense shadows, a shiver ran along my spine the first time his gaze connected with mine. I hadn’t known it was possible for eyes as icy blue as his to hold storm clouds, but he proved me wrong.
He carried some kind of pain with him like a broody cloak he never took off. As demented as it might have sounded, something about those shadows called to me like my own personal siren song. I knew all about pains of the heart, and I wanted nothing more than to see if I could squeeze a little light out between the darkness lurking in his gaze.
There was just one teensy problem.
I wasn’t anything more to him that the sister of his buddy’s new fiancée.
Talk about a hit to a woman’s pride. But even still, I couldn’t seem to turn the attraction off.
“Hey. Earth to Serenity.” Stella snapped in front of my face, giving me a jolt.
I shook my head to clear it of the cobwebs that Hunter always seemed to cause. “Sorry. Did you say something?”
Her forehead pinched in a frown as she studied me. “You totally spaced there for a second. What were you staring at?”
“Nothing,” I answered quickly, but she was already leaning in front of me, following my earlier line of sight until her gaze landed directly on the very figment of every fantasy I’d had for weeks.
“Oh, Serenity,” she said in a way that had my spine going ramrod straight. Her tone held a warning while her features dipped with pity.
“What?” I asked with a defensive snap to my tone. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
She twisted and stepped in front of me, placing her back to the room. “Look, sis, I want you to be happy. There’s nothing I want more in this world than you to find a man to treat you how West treats me. But Hunter?”
My lips pulled into a frown of confusion. “What’s wrong with Hunter? I thought you liked him.”
“I do,” she insisted vehemently. “I do like him. He’s great, it’s just . . .”
I crouched a bit to meet her downcast eyes. “Just what?”
“I don’t know, he’s just . . . hard, I guess. That’s the only way I can think to explain it.”
I shot her a sassy wink, attempting to lighten the tension that had suddenly swelled around us. “Figured you already knew this by now, but the harder the better.”
She rolled her eyes and gave my arm a smack. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.” She inhaled deeply, like she was trying to get her thoughts in order. “He’s perfectly pleasant whenever we’re at work together, but other than that, the man’s a vault. He doesn’t give anything away, and it’s damn near impossible to get to know him.”
So, he was the strong, silent type, if anything, that just made him even more appealing to me. There was just something about those hard, sexy, broody characters in the movies that drove women crazy. Hunter was a real-life version of every male heartthrob to ever grace the big screen, and I was just like all the hopelessly infatuated women in those movies, drawn to him in a way that couldn’t—or maybe wouldn’t—be ignored.
“There’s nothing wrong with keeping your personal life private,” I defended.
“No, there’s not. But it’s not just that.” She shook her head in exasperation, like she was trying to click her thoughts into place like they were pieces of a puzzle. “I’m not sure there are many people—if any—who know everything there is to know about that man, and I’d hate to see you get hurt because he couldn’t give you what you deserved.”
My mouth curved upward as I grabbed hold of my sister and pulled her into a tight, bone creaking hug. Her concern was the perfect example of that generous and loving heart of hers.
“I love you for caring, Stell Bell.” Untangling her from my hold, I took her by the shoulders and pushed her back just enough that we could see eye-to-eye. “But you don’t need to worry about me.” I winked to stress the point. “I’m a big girl. I know what I’m doing, trust me.”
She didn’t look convinced. “Really?” she asked archly, one brow raising.
I hemmed and hawed for a second. “Well, maybe not. But something tells me it’ll be damn fun, at the very least.”
Sunny Shelly’s Review: 4 Stars
That’s a wrap on the Hope Valley series by Jessica Prince, and I have loved getting to know these characters along the way!
But this book wasn’t my favorite of the series. While I liked Hunter and Serenity together, I hated how she was pining over him for so long. You are stronger than that, girl! She had some self-esteem issues stemming from her family’s history of being con artists. (She is Stella’s sister.) But I felt that she was waiting around for a Hunter and not living the new life she deserved.
Hunter, meanwhile, had suffered so much loss: his sister, his best friend, the woman he thought he’d loved. And his leg. But he was a marshmallow inside once he decided to stop fighting his feelings for Serenity.
So while I liked the couple together, how they helped each other, and where they ended up, I felt parts of the story were rushed and it just didn’t have the same zing that other books in this series left me feeling. It was still enjoyable and had that nice small-town feel, but it wasn’t my favorite from this series.
I received an advanced copy and voluntarily left a review.
Visit Hope Valley
a series of interconnected, standalone romances
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Born and raised around Houston Texas, Jessica spent most of her life complaining about the heat, humidity, and all around pain in the ass weather. It was only as an adult that she quickly realized the cost of living in Houston made up for not being able to breathe when she stepped outside. That’s why God created central air, after all.
Jessica is the mother of a perfect little boy–she refuses to accept that he inherited her attitude and sarcastic nature no matter what her husband says.
In addition to being a wife and mom, she’s also a wino, a coffee addict, and an avid lover of all types of books–romances still being her all time favs. Her husband likes to claim that reading is her obsession but she just says it’s a passion…there’s a difference. Not that she’d expect a boy to understand.
Jessica has been writing since she was a little girl, but thankfully grew out of drawing her own pictures for her stories before ever publishing her first book. Because an artist she is not.
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