Once Forbidden, Twice Tempted

This is the first story in the "Sterling Wives" series. A stand alone read that starts with the death of Jonathon Sterling dying in a car accident. He leaves his company to his two ex's and wife. This is Tara Starling and Grant Singleton's story. She wants to claim her rightful place at the company but must contend with Grant, the CEO and her ex's best friend. The lines definitely get blurred in this story. It's a captivating and intriguing story that is full on emotional depth.

While this was a decent start to what I hope will be a good series, this book did not hold my attention like I had hoped. The story line and the characters were well written, but I had a hard time liking the characters. I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

This book has left me feeling a little conflicted. I love the author’s work and her writing style. Grant and Tara are fantastic characters with lots of conflict and angst. I’m reserving judgement on Astrid and Miranda until I get into their own books, because here the just felt a bit whiny and overly dramatic. What bugged the living daylights out of me was the ‘dearly departed’ and the games he played with these peoples’ lives. I was baffled by how they could continue to respect the wishes of the petty despot and continued to shine up his tarnished reputation. I’d like to think that there’s a lot more going on and in future books in this series we’ll better understand why he pulled the strings he did. I received a complimentary advanced copy of this book through Booksprout.