ARC received for an honest review

Beautiful Rose carries on from the end of Seduce, so you will need to read it first to understand Jack.

After what happens in Seduce, Jack is finally moving forward. Sure, it has taken 3 years but what happens is not something you can just forget. Although he has started to heal, he carried a heck of a lot of emotional baggage with him, baggage that he doesn't want to jettison just yet.

He has started his new life, is opening up a new bar, his relationship with his brother is growing stronger.

Enter Rose. Rose is even more broken than Jack. Alex and Jack are giving her that chance she needs to repair herself, to move on from the things that have shaped her past.

I don't know what it is, but I just didn't connect with Rose as much as I did Belle. It is not because I couldn't understand her, as I could, and have been in some of the situations she found herself in. But there was just something that I just didn't find right with her and Jack? As the story goes on, I feel for her when she finds out things from her past that have been kept from her, but that was about it.

Jack.... He has been through so much and we have had so much change in him through the two books. I can understand him having Harmony as his girlfrind - this girl is a raging bitch and I could not stand her, but that is how Ms Johnson wants us to feel about her. She is the buffer Jack keeps between his heart and falling in love again. Through his "conversations" with her, we can see a bit of the old Jack from Seduce shine back through, the Jack that we all love.

I love the secondary characters in Beautiful Rose. We get to learn a lot more about Jack's brother Alex, who was just the occasional phone conversation in Seduce. The love between the brothers is so strong.

There are also the guys and girls from the bar, who have become Jack's best friends and support group. Ash is just Jack from a few years back, Darcy and Benj are loved up and full of wise words.

Beautiful Rose is a story about redemption, recovery, love realised. Rose and Jack's relationship (which I am still not completely sold on) could be the best thing for them, or could be a tornado that can and will destroy everything and everyone in it's path.

Is their attraction and feelings for each other enough to pull them out of their pasts to forge a new future?