Title: The Virgin’s Guide to Misbehaving
Author: Jessica Clare
Publisher/Year: Penguin Publishing 6/3/14
Length:   304 Pages
Series:  BlueBonnet #4

Overview

Playing innocent is easy.

After being the quiet, shy girl her whole life, Elise Markham is ready for a mental makeover. She’s done keeping to herself and staying out of trouble—it’s time to break out of her shell and maybe meet someone intriguing in the process. So, on a photography trip to Bluebonnet, she has a whole lot more on her mind than snapping photos, especially when Rome walks into the picture.

Playing dirty is fun.

The newest instructor at Wilderness Survival Expeditions has a colorful past, to say the least. Having come from a family of notorious con artists that destroyed his credit and reputation, all before his eighteenth birthday, Rome just wants a decent job and a quiet life in a town where no one knows his name. He’s exactly the kind of bad boy that an innocent girl like Elise should stay far away from.

But Elise is tired of doing what’s right. She’s ready to throw caution to the wind—and let Rome show her just how exciting being bad can be…

My Thoughts

There are so many folks for us to get into their stories for in this series, so it’s nice that we get to see what happens when Grant’s sister Elise crosses paths truly with Rome -their new employee.

From what you’ll remember from Grant’s story, Elise is in town with the family for a visit, and she’s quite the complex young lady.  We know that she’s really shy and reserved and that she has this past that we don’t know much about – she never went to school in town and that’s something that makes you take pause right?

She met Rome when he came to the ranch in search of a job, and he’s exactly the kind of bad boy that ideally would have been perfect for Brenna, but the sort of guy that makes Elise think and feel things that she’s never experienced before.

Her time back in Bluebonnet is an opportunity for her to stand on her own two feet, to be an adult since she’s been protected and sheltered by her parents her whole life.  Rome wakes something up inside her and if he’s strong enough to take on that challenge, what we’ll likely see is something intense and passionate.

The nice thing about this story is that where we had opposites in Grant and Brenna, there’s an even deeper level of opposites here with these two, and Rome is definitely not what he seems on the outside.  He’s got a past that’s shaped him into the kind of guy he is now, and all he wants to do is get by.  He’s not even searching for happiness anymore  just freedom.

In true form of our author, we get a sweet story more of romance than sex, which takes us in a different direction than the last installment.  there are true and real feelings that develop in this story and it’s really a question of when Grant’s going to find out and what that will mean since we know that he won’t approve.

Secrets are revealed, Rome’s past comes to haunt him in both the form of his brother and his parents, and you really don’t know what that’s going to mean for his sanity, his career and his hopes for ever being with Elise.

Elise on the other hand has a load of experiences that she wants to get under her belt – she really hasn’t done much in the form of living through her life and being with Rome and around the girls makes her take leaps that are so new to her.  I love the progression that we see her take and i love that the girl that we met in book 3 is not the same that we see towards the end of book 4.  It’s a sweet romance, but one that’s really destined not to work out.  Can’t wait to see what happens next in this series.