Review: Hollywood Holiday – Sasha Summers

All she wants for Christmas is for Hollywood to love her again. But once she meets him, her Christmas list changes.
Jen’s only Christmas wish: Hollywood falling back in love with her. Meeting ex-Marine Gunner was a bonus. She likes that he isn’t impressed by celebrities or the movie biz. She likes that he’s funny and sweet … and drop-dead gorgeous. And she loves that he has no idea who her alter-ego is: Jen Fleming, Hollywood bad-girl and paparazzi target number one. Why ruin an amazing affair when he’s leaving after the new year?

But the closer they get, the harder she falls, and the more she wants to tell Gunner everything. Especially once he shares his secret with her.

Her new Christmas wish: Gunner accepts and loves her for who she really is.

Series:  Red Carpet #2
Release Date:  December 7, 2012
Publisher:  Inkspell Publishing
Source:  Provided by Author
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Reviewer’s Thoughts:

I’ve been reading a bunch of holiday stories, because who doesn’t love a good romance story around the holidays.  But let me tell you, this has got to be my favorite one of the season so far.

Trying to put her life back together after hitting rock bottom, Jen meets ex-Marine Gunner on a flight back to LA.  He helps her deal with her anxiety during the flight and she enjoys his company.  When he asks for her number, knowing she shouldn’t be getting into any relationship at this point in her life, she decides to give him a chance, because he sees her and not her alter ego…screen vixen Jen Fleming. But when things between Gunner and Jen heat up, Jen has to have faith in herself and Gunner that he can truly accept what she does and who she is at her core.

I really liked Jen.  She was a woman who has a huge heart that seems to get herself in the worst possible situations.  She has a wonderful quality of accepting blame for the state that her life is in, but can’t seem to also accept that there were others standing right behind her shoving her into the situations she got in.  She’s very lucky to have the good friends that she has:  Maurice, Josh and Claire Wiley, but she doesn’t have the faith in herself to believe them when they tell her, repeatedly, that she really is a good person and she is oh so lovable.  It’s only her new friend, Gunner, who’s able to help her see that.

Gunner was special.  Medically discharged from the Marines after being injured in Afghanistan, he had every reason in the world to have a negative attitude about life in general.  But he didn’t.  He was upbeat, helping spread cheer at a children center and determined to prove to Jen that she was worth more than she was giving herself credit for.  He had his moments where he was insecure, but he was a man who was comfortable in his own skin and was exactly what Jen needed.

I love Sasha Summer’s Red Carpet series.  She manages to strip away the Hollywood glitz and glammar to give us characters that are just as flawed as you and me, despite their supreme hotness.  Jen is no exception to that, even in a holiday story.  Definitely one to pick up.