One Reckless Summer: A Destiny Novel (Destiny series, 1)

I really loved that book and so happy to find new romance writer. The book made me cry and laugh. It is very emotional story as well as sexy and classy. I could not put down that book for few hours. Read it, you are going like it! ( I am sorry my English :-)

Jenny Tolliver had always thought her life was perfect until the fateful day when she caught her cheating husband in the arms of her 21 year old student teacher. Divorced, emotionally adrift and struggling with the fact that her ex-husband left her because he thought she was boring in bed, Jenny returns home to spend the summer at her family's lake cottage sifting through the emotional debris of her failed marriage and figuring out what to do with the rest of her life. Mick Brody grew up dreaming of a life in one of the pretty cottages across the lake where parents didn't spend the entire day, and night, screaming at each other, where children were secure, safe and accepted by the people of Destiny - a life where someone like Mick would be worthy of pretty, sweet Jenny Tolliver. But dreams aren't reality and after his parents died and his older brother went to prison Mick left Destiny, vowing never to return. He kept that vow for more than ten years but now he's back, living in his family's old shack on the lake, keeping a dangerous secret and determined that no one discover his presence. Always the good girl, Jenny has never done anything reckless in her life...until she paddles her canoe across the lake for some stargazing and comes face to face with the sexy, gorgeous bad boy of her youth, Mick Brody. An angry and abrupt Mick orders her off his property but Jenny has had it with being the "sweet, good girl of Destiny" and refuses to go. Tempers flare, sexual energy ignites and an attraction that perhaps has been simmering, unacknowledged, for fifteen years explodes in white-hot passion. Morning after regrets are abundant, for both Jenny and Mick, but the sexual flame that burns between them is too intense to ignore and a secret, reckless affair begins that gradually, over the course of the summer, becomes much more than a walk on the wild side. Will Jenny and Mick be able to bridge the gap between her side of the lake and his to find their happy ending or will Mick's secret, Jenny's police-chief father and a perceived betrayal tear them apart forever? "One Reckless Summer" is the sensuous, steamy and emotionally heartwarming story of a woman who has always been good and a man who has never believed he was good enough. It's about stereotypes and misconceptions, living life to the fullest and having the courage to step out of your comfort zone, about complicated family relationships, doing what you believe in your heart is right even when everyone else says it's wrong and about looking beyond the packaging, to the goodness and love inside a person who is the opposite of everything you thought you wanted but is exactly what you need. Dive into the delights of hot, summer nights with Toni Blake's terrific new contemporary, "One Reckless Summer".

Wonderful beginning to a new series set in quaint and charming surroundings with a great cast of characters. I purchased "One Reckless Summer" early this afternoon and could not put it down until I turned the last page tonight. It is the kind of book you hate to see end. It leaves you wanting more. The story was emotionally charged from one end of the spectrum to the other and the romance and chemistry between the two main characters was sizzling. Toni Blake's books seem to get better and better with each one. I look anxiously forward to the next book in this series. This author is an auto-buy for me and has been since I read her first book several years ago.

Jenny Tolliver left her hometown Destiny, Ohio thirteen years ago, but has just returned home after divorcing her cheating spouse. Back then everyone who knew her classified her as a good person who would never cause her parents any aggravation; little miss perfect. Even the town's bad boy and chief hell-raiser back in high school, Mick Brody thought that and still does in spite of a bump and run tryst they share in the woods as a homecoming special. She relished the sex with Mick that made Ohio's summer heat seem cool in comparison and decides this will be her ONE RECKLESS SUMMER. As Jenny and Mick become a couple, her father the chief of police objects; ironically so does Mick who cannot resist tasting her though he knows he needs to stop imbibing. However, Jenny also knows Mick's hesitation is not just reputations; she assumes he is concealing something from her and is determined to learn what it is. This is an entertaining contemporary romance starring a good girl deciding the time for a sexual summer is now and a so called bad boy who is her willing heat raiser. They make a fun couple as no one would believe the pairing and her parents raise hell objecting. Well written filled with and a strong small-town Buckeye cast struggling with issues, the tale is summed up poignantly by Miss Ellie who succinctly states: "He's hot". Harriet Klausner