Review: The Gamble – Kristen Ashley

Love is the greatest gamble of all . . .

Nina Sheridan desperately needs a timeout vacation. With a fiancé who can’t even remember how she takes her coffee, Nina wants some distance to rethink her engagement. Flying halfway around the world from England to a mountain town in Colorado should do the trick. But when she finds a gorgeous man at her rental cabin, Nina’s cold, lonely adventure suddenly heats up.

The owner of the house, Holden “Max” Maxwell is surprised by the beautiful woman who turns up at his door. But when Nina becomes ill, Max spends days nursing her back to health. A private man with a broken heart, Max finds himself drawn to the strong-willed woman. Soon it becomes impossible for Nina and Max to deny their growing attraction to one another. Yet even as these two wounded lovebirds think about taking a chance on a relationship, a dangerous secret from Max’s past emerges-and threatens to end their love for good.

Series: Colorado Mountain #1
Release Date: December 11, 2012
Publisher: Forever Romance
Source: NetGalley
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Reviewer’s Thoughts

I’ve heard a lot about Kristen Ashley’s books and finally was able to get to one of her books, anxious to see what everyone else was raving about.   I can say I honestly enjoyed the book and she seriously snuck some tear-jearker moments in there that took me by surprise.

Nina Sheridan decided to take a break from her life and finance in England to figure out what she wanted.  When she rented the mountain A-Frame house outside Denver, she figured it would be the perfect retreat for her to regroup and decide what direction her life should take.  She didn’t plan on the owner to suddenly be at her rental or to find herself involved with not only her very own mountain man, but the charming and quirky people of Gnaw Bone, Colorado.

I have to tell you, Nina had one hell of a two week period.  So much crap was smashed in those two weeks I’m not sure how she came out the other side of her “break” sane.  First, she mets Holden “Max” Maxwell, the mountain man alpha male owner of the house she rented and instantly begins fighting him and her attraction to him.  Then she finds herself becoming friends with many of the residents of the tiny town of Gnaw Bone and engaging in verbal spats and fisticuffs with others.  All this and fighting with her fiance, her estranged father and reuniting with her mother and stepfather.  It was a bit far-fetched, but it made for an interesting and entertaining story.

But what kept me glued to this story was the relationship with Nina and Max.  Both carried a little baggage into their relationship.  And while they kept sweeping their preverbal baggage under the rug, Nina kept trying to fight off Max.  But Max was determined to have Nina.  He knew what he meant to lose something that meant the world to him and he was determined that Nina was going to be his, despite what Nina thought.  I loved their verbal spat and how, despite Nina’s protest, Max always seemed to get what he wanted by flustering Nina with innocuous statements like “You’re cute.”

They did have this instant chemistry and it was that chemistry that kept me hooked until the end.  Their relationship and the hoops they seemed to jump through just to be alone with one another, in addition to the verbal sparring they did on a regular basis about meaningless things, made up for most of the secondary storylines that I didn’t really care about (with the exception of Mindy’s.  I need Mindy to get a HEA after all she’d been through).

A decent read and one I’m glad I picked up.   If nothing else, to find out what all the buzz was about.