Nobody But You is Book 3 of the Cedar Ridge series by Jill Shalvis. Ms. Shalvis is one of my favorite authors. She excels at writing contemporary romances set in small towns inhabited by wonderful character, some of who are a little quirky—which I love to read.
The Blurb: After an overseas mission goes wrong, Army Special Forces officer Jacob Kincaid knows where he must go to make things right: back home to the tiny town of Cedar Ridge, Colorado. All he needs to scrub away his painful past is fresh mountain air, a lakeside cabin, and quiet solitude. But what he discovers is a gorgeous woman living on a boat at his dock.
Sophie Marren has nowhere else to go. She’s broke, intermittently seasick, and fighting a serious attraction to the brooding, dishy, I’m-too-sexy-for-myself guy who’s now claiming her dock. Something about Jacob’s dark intensity makes her want to tease—and tempt—him beyond measure. Neither one wants to give any ground . . . until they realize the only true home they have is with each other.
My thoughts: It is with a heavy heart that I give this book only a grade of 3 stars. I really enjoyed both Books 1 and 2 in this series and was eagerly awaiting this book. However, this book fell just a little flat for me. I liked the hero, Jacob. He is the twin of Hud, the hero of Book 2. He left Cedar Ridge and his brother at age 18 and went into the military. He faced tragedy in the military and has returned home, but is slow about returning to the family because of how he left after an argument with his brother and not knowing how to fix things. Upon returning home, he meets Sophie, a down on her luck woman who is working on turning her life around after a very ugly divorce. I had a hard time getting into the character of Sophie until the very end. A few times, she really irritated me. The other thing I had an issue with was the “resolution” of 2 subplots. One involving a problem with the resort owned by the family that we have been learning about since book 1. The problem was resolved in essentially one paragraph. I remember thinking, “How did that happen?” The other involved the sister of the family. I thought she would be getting her own book, also. Usually, that is how it works—all the main characters get their book, but her story was fairly resolved in just a few paragraphs also. Perhaps it is best explained by saying I felt the ending was rushed. This is a very unusual thing with Jill’s writing. She always writes so well and this is the first book I felt was rushed at the end. Perhaps it was just me. I will always look forward to Jill’s next book (She is starting a new series in June). She is a wonderful writer.
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