Jerk of My Dreams #16

Jerk. Asshole. Douchenozzle. Admit it- you hate to love the jerks. That alpha male character who is so arrogant and rude but sexy as hell. That foul mouthed douche bag of a man who rocks your traitorous heart. We've all read them and we've all liked them to some extent. In real life you wouldn't touch the man with a ten foot pole. But in the fictional world? Nothing can stand in the way! Everyone would be lying to themselves if they didn't admit that the meaner the man, the further we run... Towards them! *sigh* 

That's what this weekly meme is about- those jerky delicious men! Each Friday this meme will go up, and you can share your jerk anyway you want: review, interview, lines and quotes, giveaway of a book. However you want! All you have to do is sign up HERE and follow the linky. Any time you comment on someones post, leave your link so that person can comment back.

Pure.
Freaking.
Amazingness.

This book... There are no words. I've been in one hell of a book funk lately- You know... The kind of funk where literally every book you pick up sucked ass for one reason or another. For the longest time, it seemed like I was able to tell if I was going to like a book or not by reading only a few pages- Of course, every book I kept coming across just wasn't worth my time... Until I started this gem. No joke, I literally loved this book from the first page. ...And let me just go ahead and say that I am one hell of a picky reader- Probably too picky at times- However this book had everything that I look for in my romance novels, and then some.

The hero, Gunner and heroine Harlow are from two completely different worlds. Gunner is the resident boy from the wrong side of the tracks with no intentions what-so-ever on settling down with anyone... That is, until he met Harlow. Yet even then, he always knew deep down inside that he could never be good enough for her. I'm just going to go ahead and interrupt my further ranting so that I can gush about Gunner for a minute... He's officially my new favorite book boyfriend. ♥ His character was utter freaking perfection and that's not an exaggeration ladies and gentleman. Let me just go ahead and give you an example of the whispered sweet nothings that came out of his mouth:

“He was looking at you like he wanted to eat you alive, kitten,” I said, my mouth close to her ears. “And there isn’t a man I wouldn’t beat the piss out of for looking at you like that. You’re mine to eat, and I plan to do it tonight until you come in my mouth.” ~Gunner

Ummm... I don't know... Let me think about something for a second...

Yeah, who am I kidding? It didn't take much thinking on my part to know what I would have done if he had said those sweet words to me. Everything about his character was completely drool-worthy.

...The way he calls the heroine "kitten"?

...His skills in the bedroom?

...His bad boy persona?
 

Yeah... I think you catch my drift on how I felt about Gunner. Aside from the obvious though, his love for Harlow is truly admirable. She's the only woman he's ever really loved- He wants nothing but every good thing to come her way and he just doesn't think he's what she needs in her life to be happy. Everything he did, he did for her and if that kind of love isn't what we all crave in the books we read, I don't know what is.

Harlow on the other hand, is the only child to an extremely wealthy family. She has everything she could ever want and ask for... Or so she thought, that is until Gunner came along. For Harlow, Gunner changed everything. She experiences every first with him and as it turns out, he's everything she's ever wanted and deserved. I honest to God loved her character- She was everything I look for in my heroines... Sweet and innocent, and consumed by such a strong and powerful love for her man.

Each chapter alternated between Harlow and Gunner's point of view- Something that I really appreciated, because you were able to really get to know and understand each character and their feelings on such a personal level. Now, I'm not going to go into any detail reliving everything that happened in this book because I don't want to spoil the story for anyone. I'm sure for a lot of people out there, this story-line may sound like your typical plot... Blah, blah, blah. Wrong. ...Sure, there are some similarities such as the rich girl falling for the bad boy who doesn't feel like he's good enough, etc. ...But Lori Garrett seriously proves herself in this novel. She's one hell of a gifted author and her writing and this story shows that in spades. This book is uniquely its own and avoids all the typical and repetitive pit-falls that a lot of love stories out there make. The only negative thing I have to say about this book is that I wished it could have been longer- I just didn't want it to end. I'm not kidding, for the life of me I don't know how anyone will be able to read this book and not like freaking love it. The angst, devotion and affection between Gunner and Harlow is a hard thing to come by in books these days but Lori Garrett took it all to an entirely different level and in turn brought about a book truly worthy of a full five stars.

★ The author has a related book (Risk) that's coming out in the near future that features Harlow's best friend Daisy... And you can bet your sweet ass that I plan to buy it. After reading this book, Lori Garret is officially an auto-buy for me :)