TOO WILD TO TAME (Romancing the Clarksons #2) by Tessa Bailey-a review
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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date September 6, 2016
Sometimes you just can’t resist playing with fire . . .
By day, Aaron Clarkson suits up, shakes hands, and acts the perfect gentleman. But at night, behind bedroom doors, the tie comes off and the real Aaron comes out to play. Mixing business with pleasure got him fired, so Aaron knows that if he wants to work for the country’s most powerful senator, he’ll have to keep his eye on the prize. That’s easier said than done when he meets the senator’s daughter, who’s wild, gorgeous, and 100 percent trouble.
Grace Pendleton is the black sheep of her conservative family. Yet while Aaron’s presence reminds her of a past she’d rather forget, something in his eyes keeps drawing her in. Maybe it’s the way his voice turns her molten. Or maybe it’s because deep down inside, the ultra-smooth, polished Aaron Clarkson might be more than even Grace can handle.
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REVIEW: TOO WILD TO TAME is the second installment in Tessa Bailey’s contemporary, adult ROMANCING THE CLARKSONS erotic, romance series focusing on the four Clarkson siblings. This is twenty six year old political advisor Aaron Clarkson, and senator’s daughter twenty three year old Grace Pendleton’s story line. TOO WILD TO TAME can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty although I recommend reading the series in order for cohesion and backstory. The story line advances the series but a few days and picks up immediately upon the events of book one.
SOME BACKGROUND: One year earlier Miriam Clarkson passed away but not before leaving her now four grown adult children (Rita, Aaron, Peggy and Belmont) a journal of her most intimate thoughts and dreams. Miriam’s final wishes were for her children to seek out what is important in their lives and thusly a cross country trek began wherein each sibling will find his or her own happily ever after as they venture their way to New York City ending with a New Year’s Eve celebration. Rita found the love of her life in book one –Too Hot To Handle.
Told from dual third person perspectives (Aaron and Grace) TOO WILD TO TAME focuses on the building relationship between political advisor Aaron Clarkson-the all-American pretty boy who screwed up his career and finds himself lost without a purpose in life, and Grace Pendleton, the presidential candidate’s daughter and a woman whose own life has been spiraling out of control. What ensues is the back and forth, push and pull of attraction as Grace tries to venture out on her own in spite of her father’s over controlling and protective nature. Aaron does not want a repeat of his last political disaster but Grace is a woman in need of some direction in her life.
The relationship between Grace and Aaron begins accidentally as our heroine is caught running from a crime of her own making. Their attraction to one another is immediate and undeniable. As Aaron struggles with his attraction to the feisty, independent, eccentric and troubled young woman, he is also determined to become part of the senator’s political campaign quite possibly at the expense of the woman with whom he is falling in love. Grace is a bit of a wild child with a past mired in a dark and troubling secret, and it is this secret that continues to push at our heroine’s emotions. The senator and his family have chosen to ‘hide’ their youngest daughter from the media and the public eye, and in this Grace is determined to make her own mark-one way or another. Aaron likes to talk dirty in bed.
The secondary and supporting characters include Aaron’s siblings Peggy and Belmont, and the woman that controls Belmont’s demons-Sage. We are also introduced to Grace’s father- a man determined to protect his daughter from the past but a past that he also hopes to use on the race to the White House.
The world building continues to focus on the dysfunctional family dynamics of the Clarkson family. We are up close and personal into the mind of the family matriarch as each sibling will ‘seek out’ their mother’s journal and the message she has revealed and left for each of her children. I am hoping Belmont’s story will reveal the true demons that control his life.
I did struggle with the believability of one particular aspect of this story line as it pertained to Grace’s actions in the initial stages of the story-there would have been some major backlash and a police investigation but the author has chosen to take the story and resulting questionable fall-out in another direction.
TOO WILD TO TAME sees another Clarkson sibling find his happily ever after. The premise is idealistic; the characters are animated and energetic; the romance is passionate and hopeful.
Click HERE for Sandy’s review of TOO HOT TO HANDLE book 1.
Copy supplied by the publisher through Netgalley
Reviewed by Sandy
