Hey there, bookworms! It’s been a bit since I’ve updated, and it’s showing. I just made a list of seven-going-on-eight books I need to review and post for you guys. Goodness, I’m so behind! I apologize, but since Friday is my last day at work, I think I can safely predict that I’ll have more time on my hands to bring you guys updates, reviews, and plenty of bookish fun!
It’s officially May, so don’t forget, I’ve launched book club and we’re all reading We Were The Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter. If you’re following along and would like to discuss the book with us this month, you can do so here on the website (just head to the book club menu tab on the home page and click on the May Selection) or over in our facebook group, The Blabbing Book Club. I hope you come chat with us!
Now, I think I’m long overdo for a review, so let’s get to talking about Birthday Girl by Penelope Douglas!
Once in awhile, I like to push my limits and read books that have the potential to make me.. unsettled, I suppose. I like to get into the minds of the characters and find out how or why they come to the decisions they do, and therefore come to understand a situation I might not otherwise wrap my brain around. Birthday Girl accomplishes just this, and I loved every hear-wrenching moment of forbidden attraction!
Jordan and Cole are a young couple trying to make positive changes as a couple. When they’re forced to leave their home, they find themselves with no other option than to take up an offer from Cole’s slightly estranged father, Pike, to move in with him and help him with his house. When they do, Jordan and Pike can’t help but notice one another. She’s nineteen, and he’s thirty-eight as well as Cole’s dad, so there’s red flags galore as to why they both need to keep their eyes averted.
Problem is, Cole is out of the house plenty. He likes to party with his friends, he works on occasion, and he has some major growing up to do. Jordan, however, has dreams. She has passions she wants to pursue and is doing everything she can to keep in line and accomplish something in the future. To do that, she works hard, attends classes, and does what was asked of her by Pike, and helps out around the house. When Pike isn’t working, he’s at home doing projects and trying to be hospitable to his son’s girlfriend. Befriending her is dangerous territory because while she doesn’t have much in the way of help in her life, Pike can’t get tangled up in gray areas when it comes to his son’s girlfriend, no matter how much they have in common or how much he wants to see her happy.
When Jordan’s relationship with Cole goes south, Pike is there to pick up the pieces, and even while he fights temptation for as long as possible, frustration and need get the better of him, and he’s there for Jordan when she needs someone most. It’s when their age difference and the opinions of others bombard their secret and sensual world that their entanglement is threatened, jeopardizing their blissful feelings.
I’m sure I’ll be persecuted for this, but I loved every tightly-wound, anxious, and sexy moment of this story. Douglas certainly knows how to let the tension build, and build some more, and build even more before it all comes crashing down for pure satisfaction… and worry.
Sure, the age difference left me perplexed, but thinking down the road where Pike is forty-eight and Jordan is 29, it didn’t seem so taboo or forbidden. I was there for the chemistry, and I adored how fiercely he tried to protect her from being dealt a bad hand in her life. I also admired the hell out of her for busting her butt to work hard and educate herself so that she could be in charge of her own future and focus on successful goals rather than wind up the way most of her family did.
Jordan had ambition and Pike was there to encourage her and protect her while she achieved her dreams, so that, to me, was the focus of the story more so than the forbidden temptation aspect of the story, though, it helped to keep things interesting and kicked the spice levels up a notch which made this one satisfying read!
My Final Rating: four out of five stars
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