Mixing Temptation By Sara Jane Stone

After a year spent living in hiding—with no end in sight—Caroline Andrews wants to reclaim her life. But the lingering trauma from her days serving with the marines leaves her afraid to trust the tempting logger who delivers friendship and the promise of something more.

Following an accident that nearly robbed him of his hopes for the future, Josh Summers believes life has given him a second chance. He wants to settle down with the woman who stole his attention and his heart. And he’s willing to wait until she’s ready to be more than “just friends.” When fear of discovery leaves Caroline pretending to be his date, Josh tempts her to try the real thing—a relationship built on trust, not lies.

But then the past threatens and Caroline must risk everything—including her freedom—to bury her demons before she can take a chance on happy-ever-after.

This is the book we SJS fans have been waiting for! Loved characters from two separate series come together to see if they can find love. We meet Josh Summers in Sara’s Independence Falls series, I don’t know about you but his sense of humor grabbed me right off. Josh is no stranger to having people disappoint him and having life kick you in the teeth. He had a traumatic injury that made him realize what was important in life, his life of one fling after another just weren’t enough anymore. 

Caroline Andrews is introduced to us in Serving Trouble (book 1 in the Second Shot series). She is scared, hurt and yet still a kick butt Marine ready to fight if needed. Luckily for her she runs into Josh who tells her Marine buddy Noah she is in town and looking for him. You will have to read the series to really get a sense of who Caroline is and trust me it is worth it. Caroline has things in her past that make it very hard to trust anyone let alone men. She avoids people at all costs, but one man just wont leave her alone. 

After Josh’s ordeal he learned to bake, this skill comes in handy when he decides to get to know Caroline better. It takes him a long time, longer than he has ever perused a women but he feels she’s worth it. Josh never pushes Caroline and this made me respect him even more. He takes his time, giving her a friend yet making sure she knows he’s interested in more, when she’s ready. After their second date however what should be an easy fun start to a relationship is anything but. Caroline see’s a need to stop dwelling in her past but in order to do that she thinks she needs to face it head on. She also meets a women who needs her help, most men would give up, not Josh, he offers to help anyway he can. This leads us on a trip of deep contemplation, police, talks of hot tubs, laughter, and more conflicting emotions than either of them thought possible.

This book was extremely well written and researched, Sara brought a problem still to this day swept under the rug out in the open. She did this with special care and thought to how people who had suffered the same would feel when reading it. I’m highly impressed with the in depth and no holding back she took in the effort to share who Caroline was before and after the event. Showing that though horrible things happen to us, we all can heal.  You will love this book from beginning to end!