There's something totally inconvenient about falling for your bestfriend's brother. Especially when he's turned into a pompous, arrogant,albeit annoyingly sexy a-hole that you'd like to punch or kiss to deathat any given moment.
After a stupid favor that blurred the lines from friends to lovers the summer she turned eighteen, Jazz Frazer accidentally lost her heart to Joey Butler. For three years they've pretended there's nothing between them anymore. Jazz is finally ready to move on with the rest of her life. She's determined that experience sand relationships will be fun, casual and easy. After all, she learned the hard way that men just don't stick around anyway. But when her best friend gets herself into a relationship with a celebrity, Jazz has to do the one thing she never thought she'd do, call Joey and ask for help.
Repeatedly thrown together, Jazz tries everything she can to protect her heart and not fall back in love with Joey. But when Joey finally admits that Jazz is the one he's always wanted, all bets are off.
This is a full length, standalone contemporary, friends to lovers and second chance romance. It is a spin off from the Eversea series and may therefore contain minor spoilers.
4.5 Stars
Review by Lisa Kane
I am a big fan of the Butler Cove series Jack Eversea stole my heart. While reading about Keri Ann Butler and Jack I couldn't help but wonder what the story was behind her best friend, Jessica (Jazz) Fraser and Keri Ann's brother, Joey. There were lots of innuendos about something happening between them three years ago. Every time they were together there was sarcasm thrown into the conversation. I knew something bad had happened and I knew that Jazz, despite dating other guys, was still hung up on Joey It sounded like she had been wanting Joey for a long time, but he was away at med school and he seemed to constantly push her away.
"Well, that's the difference then," I respond, unable to be anything but honest. "I don't. I don't wish it away. I'd never change it. I just wish we'd had a different ending." Or any ending at all, actually.
Well, turns out there are a lot of history between them. Jazz's dad left her and her mom when Jazz was a little girl. He was a photographer with wanderlust in his soul and he took off to take pictures all over the globe. As the years wore on, the countries became more and more dangerous. Her mom works a variety of jobs trying to keep food on the table. She didn't always make the best decisions and often left Jazz alone. Kerri Ann, Joey and their Nana became her family. But Jazz always had feelings for Joey that were more romantic than they were brotherly. The back story for their rocky relationship is finally revealed and boy is it a dozy!!
The story moves from the present to the past and back to the present. There were so many times that I wish Jazzy Bear (Joey's name for Jazz) and Jay Bird (Jazz's secret name for Joey -how cute are those names!) would just talk. Not fight, not bicker, just talk it out! All That Jazz is strictly from Jazz's POV. I wish we could have gotten Joey's take on things. He explains his actions and feelings but I still had some questions that I would have liked to have had answered.
"A MISTAKE?" I pulled my shirt closed, but I still felt naked. "That's what you call what we just did? A mistake is accidentally dropping a can of paint, losing your footing, accidentally slicing your finger while chopping carrots. They happen in milliseconds. That was the longest most conscious mistake I've ever experienced."
There is so much witty banter and the steam between the two of them. You just know that they belong together and are so frustrated that circumstances keep driving them apart! I wanted them to get their acts together-they are so much happier being a part of each other's lives.
Joseph Butler and I didn't have a proper conversation again for almost three years.
It may have taken them years, but eventually the course of true love, no matter how rocky, will win out.
Three long years, and I never forgot the taste of his mouth. Something uniquely him, mixed with the faint taste of his mint gum.
It didn't hurt that we got to see a few glimpses of Kerri Ann and Jack in this story too. How about a novella for the four of them?
"I love you! he yells. "Come back to me one day!"
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