Book Review: Finding the One by Kristen Ashley + Excerpt

Finding the One was an excellent addition to the River Rain series. I love this big world with all the friendships, bonds, and found family. Blake and Dair were wonderful characters, and they made me melt. This was filled with emotion, drama, and passion, and I loved it all! I'm sharing an excerpt as well, so be sure to check it out.

Finding the One (River Rain #7) by Kristen Ashley

Their parents being family friends, American/English aristocrat, Blake Sharp, and Scottish playboy Alasdair Wallace were thrust together all through their childhoods.

Blake thought Dair was a filthy, obnoxious, little boy bully.

Dair thought Blake was a spoiled, prissy wee miss.

Then Blake grew up to be a beautiful, loving woman who took care of everyone and made amazing pistachio muffins. And Dair grew up to be a protective, fun-loving, hard-living professional rugby player.

In the meantime, they’d both been deeply betrayed by lovers.

When their paths cross again, Blake is still reeling from her fiancé’s treachery and what she learned about herself during it.

Dair thinks he’s recovered from a marriage to a woman who was not at all what she seemed, and now he’s smitten by the woman Blake has become.

So smitten, he has every intention of exploring what they can grow to be together.

But their combined family history is filled with secrets and lies. Secrets and lies that explode in their faces.

And while they deal with that, ghosts from the past rise up and threaten to haunt their future.

Is what they built together strong enough to hold true?

Or will their personal demons tear them apart?

4 out of 5 stars

Finding the One was such a wonderful story! I adored Dair and Blake. From their rich history to their bickering, I loved watching them reconnect and fall in love. I liked the emotion, drama, and passion. There were excellent details and a great build that had me hooked from beginning to end. #teamblairforever

I loved Blake. She's a former mean girl, so I really liked her growth and watching her embrace her true worth. I liked learning her history, appreciated how she owned her bad behavior, and changed her ways. She had such a big heart and was the absolute sweetest! Dair was fantastic! A hot Scot with just the right amount of alpha mixed in. He was incredibly charming, and I couldn’t get enough of him. I enjoyed learning about their pasts together and the verbal sparring that was happening while Blake still had her guard up. I loved Dair’s pursuit of her, all the sweet moments and knowing looks, and how the chemistry between them was sizzling. It was filled with so many scenes that made me swoon.

This story was emotion-filled and had just the right amount of light drama. Dair and Blake had their ups and downs with outside stressors that created mild conflict. They also had family issues happening that were tied together, and I could feel all the tension, pain, and anguish as it played out. I also enjoyed that there were a few smaller stories woven in, they were sweet and heartfelt. I adore this world and all the different connections, friendships, and bonds that are involved. It's familiar and comforting.

I thought this was a great addition to the River Rain series. This friends-to-lovers romance was entertaining and captivating, drama-filled and emotional, and it had just the right amount of spice. I’m already excited to find out who the next book will be about.

Complimentary copy received.

“You need to be nicer to Wallace, dear.”

I turned at my mother’s voice.

“They’re an important family,” Mum went on when I caught her gaze. “And he’s the heir.”

This was so Mum.

Thus, of course, I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t roll your eyes at me, Blake Charlotte Sharp,” Mum snapped.

“Alasdair Wallace is a bully,” I snapped back and looked across the bar at the man in question.

He was standing with the groom-to-be (tomorrow) Rix and Rix’s best friend, Judge.

They looked like a craft beer advertisement.

A very successful one where every man who saw it would want to be them and therefore run right out and buy that beer. Whereupon they’d drink it and think the next day, even after they’d over imbibed, they’d be prepared go on a ten-mile hike that included a bracing swim in a snow-fed lake, get home and still have enough energy to mow the lawn and f*ck their woman.

Blech.

Some women might think Dair Wallace was sinfully attractive.

I was not one of those women.

Okay, so he had thick, dark hair and rugged outdoorsman features hewn from centuries of his ancestors being, well…rugged outdoorsmen (along with rebels, warriors and pains in the asses of any English ruler that came along). He was tall and built like a rugby player (because he played rugby).

All my life, when we’d go to England for our visits to Mum, for a week during their summer holidays, the Wallaces would come down from their sprawling estate in Scotland to visit us in her townhome in London, or our family’s country seat in Somerset, or worst of this lot, we’d go up north and visit them.

Dair Wallace was the epitome of “oh, he’s pulling your hair and teasing you relentlessly because he likes you,” when everyone knew that wasn’t the case.

No, it was because little boys like that were *ssholes who weren’t taught better.

And Mum was the kind of woman who gave little boys like that as much leeway as possible, because that “was the way of her world, but also because his daddy was rich.

And because she was f*cking him.

Dair’s daddy that was.