Heartthrob (All-Stars, #3)

by Katie McCoy

[Eve1972]

So color me surprised, but I enjoyed this one way more than I thought I would. I'll be honest I am not a fan of actor heroes or rock star heroes, really any famous type of hero. Mostly because generally the plots are always filled with OW drama, and the heroes are always uber manwhores. Neither was the case in this one thankfully. Oh, he wasn't a saint, since the whole reason he needs a "fake" girlfriend is to makeover his reputation, but he didn't seem to be a walking STD, so that was a bonus.



Onto the deets...the writing was fantastic in this one. The pace was perfect. The plot was engaging and kept me turning the pages. I loved the Jane Austen influence and the British setting. It was charming. It was romantic. It was cute. It had witty banter. I didn't find particularly angsty, and there was no OW/OM drama. It was a bit of a slow burn (no sex until 60%), but I didn't mind the wait as Penny and Jaxon had great on page chemistry. It had an excellent array of secondary characters that consisted of couples from previous books and I especially liked the friendship between Penny and one of Jax's costars. I hope we will be seeing more of her at some point.



Both main characters were immensely likable. I ADORED both Jax AND Penny equally and let me tell you that is a VERY rare thing to happen. Penny was smart and sassy and wore her heart on her sleeve. Jax was sexy (hello Mr. Darcy) and sweet. Oh sure I wanted to slap him upside the head near the end, and I wish it wouldn't have taken him so long to get his head out of his ass, but that was the way it played out, so whatcha gonna do? To that point, and this is where the book lost half a star for me, the ending felt a bit rushed. I *think* I would have preferred a bit more groveling on Jaxon's part. Lastly, it was all wrapped up in a sweet epilogue that maybe could have included a further into the future look at this couple. That said since couples from other books tend to pop up in new books I am guessing this wasn't the last we will see this pair so I wasn't overly bothered by it.

I am going to wrap this up now as I seem to have written a book length review at this point and say, this one gets two huge thumbs up from yours truly.