Title:  Take Me
Author: J Kenner
Publisher/Year: Random House Publishing Group 12/3/13
Length:  90 pages
Series: Stark Trilogy #3.5

Overview

I’ve long dreamed of my fairy tale wedding, but it wasn’t until I met Damien Stark—who captured me with his kisses and undid me with his touch—that I began to believe it was my destiny. Though we both carry secrets and scars, our shared passion heals us, binding us together. We have surrendered to each other completely, and our mutual ecstasy is the brightest light in my life.

But darkness still snakes through the cracks in our armor. Ghosts from our past have moved in, bringing fresh pain that cuts deep and threatens to destroy everything we hold dear.

Damien is my anchor to this world, and I am his. But if we are going to keep each other, we have to fight the shadows of our pasts to move forward into our future.

My Thoughts

Since we saw the conclusion of their story in Book 3 – complete me, i wasn’t really expecting much more out of the tale of Damien and Nikki.  Not that it wouldn’t have been nice to see a bit more into the future, i don’t know that it was necessary.  What we get in this short novella is a slight jump into the future, where we see what’s become of the couple now that things are starting to settle down between them.

The introduction to this story makes you wonder what’s really going on though since it’s quite dramatic, but after you settle into it after a few pages, you see that there’s the expected anxiety that comes with preparing for your wedding, when stress isn’t your friend.  We get a constant reminder through this story of how Nikki used to deal with pain and stress, and that’s something that she’s constantly fighting with.  Damien continues to be her rock, but is that what’s good for her?

Nikki’s mother of course shows up at an inopportune time, when things couldn’t be worse for Nikki – and of course that adds to a few pages of stress.  The question becomes whether Nikki will let her mother run over her or if she’ll find her inner strength and fight.  Of course you can expect what the answer is – but will that be the last we hear of it?  i’m doubting it.

What i really liked though is that our author – Julie Kenner sets things up nicely for a spin-off which i would welcome.  We got to know Jaime quite a bit throughout the Stark trilogy that i think we could see something come of her life.  It sounds like she’s starting to sort things out and realizes that on her own she won’t be strong enough to stay on the right path, but i think that there’s a hint of things to come.  Aside from that, there seems to be a lot of hinting towards relationships with either Evan (one of Damien’s friends that we just met) and Ryan (one of Damien’s security). so, we’ll see what happens 🙂

Enjoy this quick read – nothing too dramatic, but at least it sticks with the heat and passion and protectiveness that we’ve come to love and appreciate.  there’s also a nice little flashback scene in this installment that takes us back to the first night that Nikki and Damien reconnected (at that party not at the pageant).