About the Book
Opposites
attract in a sexy tale of unexpected love
When the Dempsey patriarch suffers a heart attack, Lucas Dempsey steps up to keep the doors of the family restaurant open. The proverbial prodigal son returns home to Anchor Island—putting family first and his quest to make partner at his high-powered law firm on hold. Sporting a bruised ego after losing his fiancĂ©e to his older brother, Lucas would rather walk on glass than spend six weeks within spitting distance of the happy couple. But family duty calls. And that duty includes working side-by-side with a tantalizing spitfire intent on driving him mad.
Tough-as-nails boat mechanic Sid Navarro is happy to trade her tools for an apron to help the Dempseys in their time of need. That is, until she realizes she’ll be working alongside Lucas, the man she’s loved from afar since she first laid eyes on him in high school. Lucas could charm the paint off a schooner, but Sid knows she doesn’t fit his girl-next-door type. To show her true feelings would mean certain heartbreak, but the temptation of Lucas in her bed might be more than she can resist.
After a rocky start punctuated by verbal barbs and exasperating arguments, things heat up between them—big-time—but their steamy affair turns more than casual in a matter of weeks. Sid’s life has become the dream she’s always wanted, and Lucas has fallen hard for the last woman he ever expected to love.
But this affair has an end-date, as Lucas must return to his life and career in the big city, a place where Sid would never fit in. When the end comes earlier than expected, walking away turns out to be a challenge neither of them wants to win.
Up to the Challenge is a sexy, fast-paced, romantic story of family, island life, and finding love in unexpected places.
When the Dempsey patriarch suffers a heart attack, Lucas Dempsey steps up to keep the doors of the family restaurant open. The proverbial prodigal son returns home to Anchor Island—putting family first and his quest to make partner at his high-powered law firm on hold. Sporting a bruised ego after losing his fiancĂ©e to his older brother, Lucas would rather walk on glass than spend six weeks within spitting distance of the happy couple. But family duty calls. And that duty includes working side-by-side with a tantalizing spitfire intent on driving him mad.
Tough-as-nails boat mechanic Sid Navarro is happy to trade her tools for an apron to help the Dempseys in their time of need. That is, until she realizes she’ll be working alongside Lucas, the man she’s loved from afar since she first laid eyes on him in high school. Lucas could charm the paint off a schooner, but Sid knows she doesn’t fit his girl-next-door type. To show her true feelings would mean certain heartbreak, but the temptation of Lucas in her bed might be more than she can resist.
After a rocky start punctuated by verbal barbs and exasperating arguments, things heat up between them—big-time—but their steamy affair turns more than casual in a matter of weeks. Sid’s life has become the dream she’s always wanted, and Lucas has fallen hard for the last woman he ever expected to love.
But this affair has an end-date, as Lucas must return to his life and career in the big city, a place where Sid would never fit in. When the end comes earlier than expected, walking away turns out to be a challenge neither of them wants to win.
Up to the Challenge is a sexy, fast-paced, romantic story of family, island life, and finding love in unexpected places.
Review
I loved the fact that
the heroine in this book was not your average damsel in distress. Spunky Sid
Navarro reminded me from the very start of Jo Polniaczek from the 1980’s sitcom
The Facts of Life. I’m showing my age
here, don’t look – but wait, they still play that on TV Land don’t they? Ok
maybe I am redeemed. I loved Sid more than any other female lead character I
have read in a long time. I relished how she put everyone (and I do mean
everyone) in their place. Even her crude language and obscene t-shirts made her
endearing because they were her and
she was not going to apologize for
it.
However, you just knew under all that rough and tumble don’t ‘eff’
with me exterior there was a soft and vulnerable women inside that was just too
scared to really trust anyone. And when the man she has been pinning for since
she was an awkward teenager happens to show back up in her little town, she
just does not know whether to put up more of her tom-boy front or show him the
soft side of her that has wanted him for so long. And as you get to know Sid
and see her though the eyes of Lucas (ahhhhh….Lucas Dempsey….swoon) you can see
Sid as the sexy little thing that she really is under the oversized t-shirts and grubby jeans. She is not the tom-boy she leads
everyone to believe she is and he starts to see that in vivid detail and so will you.
The ending was abrupt but I think that was by design. You’ll see what I
mean when you get there. It will not disappoint and you just have to remind
yourself that the book cannot go on forever – even if you wished it would.
Ok, I do not want to give away any juicy details because this book is chalked
full of them and you will savor every one. Terri Osburn has a hit with Up to the Challenge –pick it up, download
it, check it out TODAY! And let me know how you liked it.
