Sophia Rose Reviews: Flirting With the Beast by Jane Porter

Today Sophia Rose is here to share her review of Flirting With The Beast, #2 in Jane Porter's Modern Love series. Read all about what she thought.
Enjoy!

Flirting With the Beast by Jane Porter

#2 Modern Love

Contemporary Romance

Publisher:  Berkley

Published: 11.29.22

Pages:  334

Rating: 4 stars

Format: Mass Market Paperback

Source: Berkley

Sellers: Amazon

ADD TO: GoodReads

 

GoodReads Blurb:

A woman expecting to spend the holidays alone finds warmth in the iciest man she knows in this steamy and charming later-in-life romance by New York Times bestselling author Jane Porter.

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?

 

Sophia Rose's Review:

Having protagonists of my own age demographic was definitely a pull toward this latest from Jane Porter’s Modern Love series and I was in the mood for a widow starting over with a crotchety divorcee’.  I’ve enjoyed some of the author’s older books and was prepared for her character-driven romance and layered, fascinating characters and I was not disappointed.

 

Flirting With the Beast is second in a series, but easily reads standalone.  It opens with poor Andi McDermott getting to a place after the loss of her husband where she’s ready to engage with life again.  She starts with getting into the holiday spirit and inviting her step-son over, but he stands her up.  Feeling the need for a retreat she heads to the cabin up on Lake Arrowhead to do the holiday alone.  A brief uncomfortable encounter with her late husband’s arch-enemy neighbor, then a storm and said neighbor coming to the rescue brings Andi and Wolf together.

 

I wasn’t sure what the author would do to make it clear that the figures in this story were older, but still vibrant lovers.  I felt right away Andi’s reemergence as her own person after, for years, being the perfect wife who lost herself to be the woman her husband demanded of her was interesting particularly as it corresponded with getting to know Wolf who is another forceful, dominant man.  Being the older generation to her step-son, burying a husband of many years and looking back on a childlessness that was a private source of pain when her husband didn’t want more children.  On Wolf’s part, looking back on serving in the Marines, a divorce to a pill of an ex, sons he’s not close to, loss of his oldest son in war and now helping his son’s girlfriend and her child by putting them up.  Obviously, the pair are weathered by some life and gave authenticity to this romance for a woman in her late fifties and a man in his sixties.  They can’t have a romance that is isolated and other people factor into it like Andi taking on a friendship with Lyndsay, Wolf’s son’s girlfriend.

 

They think to have a brief one-time sexual encounter, but are both surprised when desires do not bank down and they both want more.  Wolf ends up coming back into her orbit and they decide to give it a go.  This pair caused mix feelings in me.  Wolf was overly jerkish and Andi was overly mild.  I struggled with the push and pull this put on their romance development.  To be fair, he’s not only that and neither is she.  Wolf’s a protector and saw quality and worth in Andi that her husband never did, but whew boy, does his taciturn, irascible nature really get ugly on poor Andi near the end and I was with her friend who wondered if Andi shouldn’t have put the whole thing off.  Andi did take a temporary time out and made it clear how badly he messed up which showed she was not the same woman who would do all the bending in a relationship.

 

All in all, I was engaged with reading their story.  It wasn’t an easy romance and they had struggles, but it was real and passionate.  Returning to a Jane Porter book was a success and now I want to read the first book in the series.  I would definitely recommend this one to those who want a seasoned pair in their contemporary romance.

 

Author Bio:

I'm a small town girl at heart. Born in Visalia, California, I love central California's golden foothills, oak trees, and the miles of farmland. In my mind, there's nothing sweeter in the world than the heady fragrance of orange blossoms on a sultry summer night.

As a little girl I spent hours on my bed, staring out the window, dreaming of far off places, fearless knights, and happy-ever-after endings. In my imagination I was never the geeky bookworm with the thick coke-bottle glasses, but a princess, a magical fairy, a Joan-of-Arc crusader.

My parents fed my imagination by taking our family to Europe for a year when I was thirteen. The year away changed me (I wasn't a geek for once!) and overseas I discovered a huge and wonderful world with different cultures and customs. I loved everything about Europe, but felt especially passionate about Italy and those gorgeous Italian men (no wonder my very first Presents was Italian).

I confess, after that incredible year in Europe, the travel bug bit, and bit hard. I spent much of my high school and college years abroad, studying in South Africa, Japan and Ireland. South Africa remains a country of my heart, the people, the land and politics complex and heart-wrenching.

After my years of traveling and studying I had to settle down and earn a living. With my Bachelors degree from UCLA in American Studies, a program that combines American literature and American history, I've worked in sales and marketing, as well as a director of a non-profit foundation. Later I earned my Masters in Writing from the University of San Francisco and taught jr. high and high school English.

After sixteen years in Greater Seattle, I'm back in California, making my home in a historic Ole Hanson home in San Clemente, with my surfer husband and three very active sons. I love being near the beach and being able to walk everywhere, but I also love being at my desk, writing stories about women and our lives, as well as the need to love, and be loved. I like a story with a happy ending. But then, I believe, we all do.

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/authorjaneporter

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/authorjanep

Sophia’s Bio:

Sophia is a quiet though curious gal who dabbles in cooking, book reviewing, piano-playing, and gardening. Road trips and campouts, museums and monuments, restaurants and theaters are her jam. Encouraged and supported by an incredible man and loving family. A Northern Californian transplant to the Great Lakes Region of the US. Lover of Jane Austen, Baseball, Cats, Scooby Doo, and Chocolate.

As a lifelong reader, it was inevitable that Sophia would discover book blogs and the joy of blog reviewing. Sophia is a prolific reader and audiobook listener which allows her to experience so many wonderful books, authors, and narrators. Few genres are outside her reading tastes, but her true love is fiction particularly history, mystery, sci-fi, and romance. Though, sorry, no horror or she will run like Shaggy and Scooby.

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/sophia.rose.7587

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sophiarose1816

GoodReads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13418187.Sophia_Rose