Flirting With the Beast by Jane Porter
Published Nov. 29, 2022 – Berkley
Review book courtesy of the publisher
Description:
It’s been five years since Andi McDermott lost her husband, and she’s finally starting to feel like herself again, ready to live fully—she’s even started dating again. But when her holiday plans with her stepson and his fiancée fall through, she refuses to spend another Christmas alone while everyone is celebrating with their families. Impulsively, she decides to go up to her cabin in Lake Arrowhead, a place she used to love to visit but hadn’t gone to in years, not since the feud started between her husband and their nearest neighbor.
Andi starts to rethink her decision when being alone at the cabin proves to be more challenging than she expected—a heavy snowstorm hits the area, and Andi finds herself trapped there with no one to help except for her neighbor, Wolf Enders. A military vet who lives full-time on Lake Arrowhead, Wolf is as grumpy and intimidating as Andi remembers. But he’s also unexpectedly kind and uncomfortably sexy—his presence reminds Andi that she may be older, but her body still works perfectly fine, thank you very much. But can this good girl tame this sexy beast of a man, and will this snowy fling turn into a love of a lifetime? (publisher)
My take:
Flirting With the Beast is the second book in Jane Porter’s Modern Love series. I enjoyed the first book, Flirting With Fifty and found this new book as good and maybe even better.
I like how Porter writes emotionally strong women and men. That said, there was a point where I was tempted to throw my book at the wall. No spoilers here but I will say I kept reading because I had faith that Porter would bring things around to the expected HEA. I wasn’t disappointed.
The older main characters (late 50s woman and 60ish man) were a real draw for me. As most people in that age demographic, they’ve experienced love, disappointments, tremendous loss which has shaped the people they’ve become. That made for interesting characters that were easy to cheer for. I liked the mountain setting as well as the small town locale when they weren’t at their cabins. Between the two families there was plenty of drama to move the plot along all making for a book that I didn’t want to stop reading.
Fans of Women’s Fiction with a strong dose of Romance will want to grab a copy of Flirting With the Beast. It can stand alone but I recommend the first book as well. I look forward to the third book Flirting With Fire which is excerpted in this edition.
Bookfan 