Title: Shake it Up
Author: J Kenner
Publisher/Year:  Martini & Olive 4/29/18
Length:   132 Pages
Series:  Man of the Month #8

Overview

There are a million reasons why I need to stop thinking about Taylor D’Angelo naked.

She’s too young for me, for starters.

She’s too ambitious.

She’s my job.

Romance was the last thing on my mind when I agreed to look into her stalker as a favor.

Now, she’s all I can think about–and in every position I can imagine.

I’m not the only one obsessing.

The threats against her are intensifying along with our connection.

If I give in, if I let our bodies take over, it could draw her stalker out.

Our passion could save her.

Or it could destroy us both.

My Thoughts

This is yet another great installment to the greater series by our wonderful author.  Yes, while you don’t ‘have’ to read all of the stories to get the gist of things, it’s really helpful to have them all in your head since there are links in each.

In any event, we had just met Landon in the previous story, seeing the hot detective from afar, and now it’s his turn to get a story.  There’s also the bit of Taylor – a girl who’s been in the series from the beginning, really helping get things handled for the contest each time.

Of course each has a complicated backstory, but in this case it’s really about Taylor and her past which she makes it very hard for us and Landon to get information about.  She’s run from a past which isn’t the best (seems to be a trend in this series) and we never really get to know what made it what it was until perhaps it’s too late.  That’s where Landon comes into play since he’s a detective and has been asked to help sort out who is watching her, stalking her etc.

The journey of this installment is kind of basic, yet there’s more chemistry and heat here than in some of the others, so again i don’t know how J Kenner does it, but she manages to keep things fresh.  Here, Landon isn’t really searching for anything for himself.  he’s waiting to get a new partner in the PD, and he’s renovating his house, but his past is really just one of a wife who wasn’t able to accept what he does for a living and left.  That hasn’t really stunted him exactly, so it’s not the case here that we need to find out what truly damaged him and gave him ghosts.  Makes it a bit easier for us to have a more in depth story for Taylor.  We don’t know anything about her except for the fact that no one really knows her longer than her senior year in high school when she moved to Austin.  She doesn’t talk about her family, and she doesn’t talk about anything that shaped her, so you know it has to be major.

So when she becomes the target of a stalker, someone who’s leaving scary notes for her, throwing bricks at her car (if you recall, that’s the car accident that we had in the last installment that was aimed at Taylor but she wasn’t driving at the time).  The stalkers’ identity is one that’s up in the air for the reader since Taylor hopes that it’s one person, knowing that it’s likely to be someone else.  Someone who wants to kill her for reasons that we still don’t know.

The question becomes what will lure out this stalker and will he get caught before anyone gets hurt?  What will then happen between Landon and Taylor, a couple that clearly has chemistry and sparks.  will they act on it or stay professional?  will they need someone or something to push them together faster?  Only way to find out is to read on.  And then wait a week for book 9 to see what’s next for this group!  enjoy!