One Perfect Kiss by Jaci Burton – Review, Excerpt & Giveaway
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Description:
Josie Barnes has always craved a sense of home. She’s found that in Hope, Oklahoma–she bought a house, has a new job as an English teacher at Hope High, she’s made wonderful friends, and she’s taking in stray animals that no one else wants. Now she’s flirting with fellow teacher and hot high school football coach Zach Powers. But he’s almost too good to be true, and Josie learned long ago not to trust in the too-good-to-be-true, because it has always let her down.
A former pro football player, Zach had to pull back when a career-ending knee injury forced him to rethink his future. Now he’s happy calling plays as Coach. If he could just get Josie Barnes to stop benching his players for their poor grades, life would be perfect. Instead, she drives him crazy as the stern teacher at school and the sexy woman of his dreams outside of the classroom. He knows she’s been hurt in the past, but he wants to be that guy she can trust.
The one thing Josie has never been able to count on is the people closest to her. But Zach intends to show her that what they have between them is a textbook case of love
Review:
One Perfect Kiss by Jaci Burton is the 8th book in her wonderful Hope series. This series is a wonderful small town romance, with a great couple that Burton continues to give us in each and every book. It is always great to visit Hope and get to see all of our favorite recurring characters (previous book couples).
One Perfect Kiss introduces us to our couple, Zach Powers and Josie Barnes; both of whom are teachers at Hope High. Zach is a former pro football player, who had to quit due to a knee injury, and ended up in Hope as a teacher and football coach.
Josie is an English teacher at the High School, and is content in her life in Hope. She has made good friends (all of whom we met in previous books), but Josie is not interested in becoming involved with anyone. She is divorced, with her ex leaving her and also must deal with her distant mother, who is a drug addict.
When Josie puts two football players on probation because of bad grades, Zach comes to her upset. He agrees to work with his two players to help them pass, and she will remove them from probation, allowing them to play. This opens the door for both of them to spend some time together getting to know each other. In a short time, despite Josie’s determination not to become involved, a slow built romance starts to heat up. Zach begins to fall for Josie, and knows he needs to be patient, as she has some issues from the past holding her back. Their relationship will become hotter, as they both succumb to their feelings. I did love Zach and how he was able to get Josie to trust him.
Besides spending time with all of our favorites, I absolutely adored Zach’s dog, Wilson, whom he adopted with Josie’s persuasion. I also got a kick out of Tumbles, Josie’s cat, who at first was not friendly to Zach, who ended up calling him all kinds of nicknames (satan, prince of darkness,etc). It was cute, and in time Tumbles and Zach would become friends.
Josie’s relationship with her mother did have a big impact on her life, but with her life changing as she falls in love with Zach, she attempts to find a way to help her mother into rehab.
Jaci Burton once again gives us a sweet heartwarming story line, with another wonderful couple, a sensational group of friends, and the small town atmosphere of Hope. If you enjoy sweet, sexy romances, great couples, friendships, family, cute dogs and cats, then you need to be reading this series. You can’t get wrong reading anything by Jaci Burton.
Reviewed by Barb
Copy provided by Publisher
“I’m happy to help enhance your kissing experience.”
She tilted her head back. “I have experience with kissing, Zach.”
“I imagine you do. We should put our experiences together and see how that goes. If you’re interested.”
“I’m interested, and you should most definitely kiss me.”
He moved in, but then Wilson butted in between them and barked.
That heated moment dissipated in an instant.
Josie laughed and took a step back. Zach frowned and stared down at Wilson, who was dancing between them.
“I think he might need to pee,” she said.
“Dude, we were just outside. You peed on everything.”
Wilson continued to wag his tail, so Zach went to the back door and opened it, then went outside with the dog, who dashed over to a nearby tree and, sure enough, peed on it.
“Okay, Wilson. I’m noting you have the smallest bladder in town.”
“Hey, at least he let you know he had to go out,” Josie said, coming up beside him and sliding her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “That’s more than most dogs would do on day one at a new place. You should praise him and give him a treat.”
“For using a bush as a urinal?”
“Yes. That’s how you encourage him to do the same thing the next time.”
He brushed his thumb over her bottom lip. “The next time I want to kiss you?”
She laughed. “These lips aren’t going anywhere. Except inside. It’s getting a little chilly out here.”
“Okay. Go pick out a bottle of wine. I’ll hang out here with the dog for a while and see if there’s anything else he wants to do.”
“See? Now you’re getting the hang of being a dog daddy.”
He grimaced. “Dog daddy? Please don’t ever call me that again.”
She grinned, then disappeared. Zach wandered the yard with Wilson, who, despite sniffing every blade of grass, every bush and tree trunk, did nothing else remarkable, so they finally went back inside. Josie had some stuff piled up on the kitchen island.
“Hey, I rummaged while you and Wilson were outside. Hope you don’t mind.”
“I don’t.”
“Good. I figured you’d want to watch the game—” She lifted her head up. “Some game or whatever. If you’re not particular about what game, I have suggestions.”
He walked into the kitchen. “You do, huh?”
“I do. Anyway, I found cheese and fruit and awesome crackers in your pantry. You are well stocked. I’m impressed.”
“I like to eat and it pisses me off when there’s no food in the house.”
“Good food, apparently.”
Wilson trotted over to the water bowl and took several long drinks. Zach pulled his attention back to Josie, who had apparently found the bottle opener because she was pulling the cork out of a bottle.
“Something wrong with good food?” he asked.
“Not in my book. You want wine?”
“Sure.”
She’d made herself at home in his kitchen. He didn’t know how to feel about that. His kitchen, hell his entire house, was his domain.
He liked people just fine, enjoyed entertaining them and hanging out with them, but usually never on his own turf. There were a lot of reasons for him choosing to keep his home base to himself, and Josie making herself comfortable here was a…thing.
But he’d invited her over, so any way he felt about it, he was going to have to keep it to himself.
And as she laid the tray on the coffee table, kicked off her shoes and pulled her feet up on his sofa, and Wilson jumped up and curled up next to her, he had to admit to feeling a kick of something he’d never felt before. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly what that feeling was, only that watching Josie petting Wilson made him ache for something he was sure he’d never had before.
“You going to stand there and stare at us, or are you going to come over here and sit down?”
He blinked at Josie’s words, but he didn’t move. For some reason he felt frozen, unable to take that step forward.
Come on, idiot, you can do this. It’s not like she asked you to get married or move in or anything. It’s just sitting on the damn couch together.
Whatever this thing was, he needed to get over it. Forcing his feet to move, he made his way to the couch and sat between Josie and the dog. Wilson got up, turned around in a circle three times, inched over a bit toward him and went to sleep, his body nudged against Zach’s right thigh.
Jaci’s publisher is offering TWO (2) paper copies of the winners choice from the HOPE series to ONE (1) lucky commenter at The Reading Cafe.
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Jaci Burton is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling, award-winning author of over 50 books. She lives in Oklahoma and when she isn’t on deadline (which is often), she can usually be found wrestling with her uncooperative garden, wrangling her dogs, watching an unhealthy amount of television, or completely losing track of time reading a great book. She’s a total romantic and longs for the happily ever after in every story, which you’ll find in all her books.