All She Wanted

by Nicole Deese

[Angie]

I liked All She Wanted much better than All for Anna. Charlie has just been suspended from college (I honestly didn't know this was a thing). Her grades have been slipping since her fiance left her and she's in danger of losing her scholarship. Now she's back home, but her parents are taking off on a cruise. Her father wants to make sure she follows his rules, so he asks Briggs to stay at the house and make sure she doesn't sneak out. Briggs expects a spoiled, manipulative brat. He doesn't expect to fall in love.

All She Wanted is full of tension! Like, it could be titled All Tension. Briggs and Charlie do get off to a rough start, since she obviously things she can sneak around her "manny" to go clubbing with her friends. Wrong! But then she spends a lot of time with him and they just click. He makes her feel wanted which is something she never had before (tragic past). Briggs is a good, Christian man though, so he waits to act on his feelings until he can talk to Charlie's father and ask for his blessing. He doesn't get it, because Charlie's father wants her to concentrate on school, and Briggs respects that. So...tension! So much tension! She wants him and doesn't understand why he doesn't want her. He wants her, but can't let her know! SO MUCH TENSION!

Okay, so the tension does get to be a bit much toward the end, but eventually they do get together since this is a romance. All She Wanted also gets bonus points for not having Charlie suddenly give up on her dreams because God told her to. In fact, there is no literal voice of God at all. There's a few mentions of church and praying, and Charlie's dad busts out the "Love is patient" verses. So it read more like a regular Contemporary Romance to me rather than a Christian Romance, which is probably also why I liked it better than the first book.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.