Down London Road (On Dublin Street, #2)

by Samantha Young

[EBookObsessed]

When we first met Johanna Walker in On Dublin Street, she comes off as a gold digger, going from one rich boyfriend to another, and even ready to jump in and grab up Bradon if Joss wasn’t interested.

In Down London Road, we learn that Johanna is the daughter of an abusive father, and an alcoholic mother, and everything she does is for the benefit of her little brother, Cole. Since her father long disappeared and her mother always in the bottle, Jo had to drop out of high school at 16 to get a job to pay the rent and buy food. Because Jo didn’t finish school, she works very hard at two part-time jobs. With her lack of education and through years of mental and physical abuse from her parents, she doesn’t believe she is worth much. She believes that the only thing going for her is her good looks, and the only way that she and Cole will do more than just survive in the poor end of Edinburg is for her to put her good looks to work and find a rich boyfriend who will bring them financial security.

Yet in always looking first at the pocket book of future dates, she is perceived in a bad light by those around her. Joss and Johanna have since become friends and Joss is aware that she misjudged Jo. When Cam MacCabe comes into Johanna’s life, he takes one look at her on the arm of her rich boyfriend, and immediately decides that she is out for all she can get. After getting a job at Club 39 working with Joss and Jo, Cam finally learns the real Johanna Walker and encourages her to believe in herself. He especially wants her to dump her rich boyfriend and give in the pull they have for each other.

With Cam in not only her life, but becoming a close friend to her brother, Cole, Jo can finally see a life worth more to her than just being arm candy to some rich guy, and she stops trying to be the perfect girlfriend, and begins to become someone she wants to be, but when you finally live the life you’ve always wanted, the risk of losing it all can be so frightening.

THOUGHTS:
A brilliant follow up to On Dublin Street. Johanna doesn’t come off as a very likeable character in Book #1. We believe her to be a bimbo looking for a meal ticket, but like Joss, we get to know her better and begin to understand what her young life has been like and why she feels the need to seek out rich men. Just like us, Cam walks in to the story and misjudges Jo and is actually quite nasty to her for the first quarter of the book and we hate him for it, although when he finally apologizes for being such a jerk, it is eloquent and heartfelt. At this point, we start to root for Cam and Jo to be together.

I truly enjoyed the characters and the story in On Dublin Street, so I don’t know why like a teacher with her red pen, I started this book positive that it could not be as good as On Dublin Street, and I was ready to point out all the similarities to Book #1 or all the clichéd romance plot points. As I read, the discussion in my head was a bit like this…”This guy is an ass**le…ooo, nice apology.” “Oh, that’s the stupid mistake that’s going to ruin it all…oh, that was a smart way to deal with that.” “There is NO excuse for that…oh, yeah I see where that could be misconstrued.”

All I can say is, nicely done, Ms. Young. Nicely done. An A+ for you.

And it didn’t hurt that I could picture Jude Law bringing in an incredible Cam MacCabe performance.

I can’t wait to see who is next in this series.

Received an ARC from netgalley.com, courtesy of the publisher. Thank you.

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