Breathe (Colorado Mountain Series Book 4)

I reviewed this at MustReadBooksOrDie with my friend Shelley!Shel: Not sure I've run into this heroine in Kristen Ashley's book before--a shy, librarian, virgin?!!! It totally works....especially with Chace Keaton as her Alpha Male. Because here's the thing...Faye may be shy but she's certainly not dumb, not a push over, and not unwilling to speak her mind. She's also kind, loyal, and has the inner toughness of a gladiator. Good thing, too, because Chase is still dealing with some ugliness hanging over from the murder of his wife. He's a fantastic match for her because as badass as he is, he's also gentle, straightforward, and humble...with a healthy dose of bossy badass mixed in.Court: I am glad that we can describe him this way, because at first I was calling him a grade-a dick. Though, my current name of choice is vagina instead of dick because it sounds much more satisfying to me...hahaha. Anyways, I was back on Team Chase asafp when we meet him in the middle of the night clearly not dealing well with his wife's murder--no matter how much he may not have wanted her to be his wife. True to alpha male fashion it was a slap in the face to him, so while he hurt: I was glad he showed that so I could like him again.Shel: So in no defined order here are the things I love about this particular Kristen Ashley book:Shel: 1. Wookiepedia. That freakin' cracks me up. The entire conversation that goes with that term had me shaking the mattress with laughter--at 1:30 AM (sorry, honey!). That shit was hilarious. Court: Exhibit A of why I connected so well with Faye. The books. The shows. The internet. She is classic.Shel: 2. Serenity...and Benji...that entire thing is a beautiful, beautiful addition to this novel and ...well...you'll see! Court: It is a great addition. And well you know how I feel about my online friends. (aka: You, Shel) So you can see why would appreciate this part a lot.Shel: 3. The conversations between Deck and Chace...they have a bromance that is amazeballs. And then the other bro conversations about the men and their women. I especially loved when Silas came to see Chace...awesomeness and handled so well! Court: Deck. Those scenes made me so excited + hopeful we would read about Deck...and we did. Kaleidoscope y'all.Shel: 4. Faye is a librarian..a FREAKIN' librarian..how cool is that? It's way cool. And the way the town adores and supports Faye...ah-mazing. Court: Awww. I <3 Faye.Shel: 5. Family. Faye has a great one, Chace has a difficult one. Together they have the Carnal family and the way all of the families pull together makes me want to move to a tiny Colorado town and inhabit the warmth and love that small town living provides (at least in Kristen Ashley books). Court: Solidified my love for the word Posse, y'all.Shel: 6. The conversation about doing right or righting a wrong...and how Faye goes about doing that for multiple wrongs, in multiple ways (as does Chace..but really Faye steals the show) Court: She does. How she sees life is epic. We all need to be more like Faye. #TruthShel: 7. The conversation, at the end, about knights and their armor. Sigh. ...that was a good one. And I'll pause here to say that I actually stopped after reading it, put down my Kindle, stared out the window and my mind roamed over these things: Kristen Ashley has got to be the best person in the entire world, with the biggest heart, and the best family because she always just knows...JUST KNOWS the right way to put things. Then I thought ... Kristen Ashley is a national treasure and if someone doesn't write a book about her and her writing and her upbringing it would be criminal. Then I thought...Kristen Ashley is probably so humble that she'd refuse to do it but the world needs to know more about her. Then lastly I thought about the strength of Faye (and really all of the Kristen Ashley female protagonists) and how wise they all are...and all of that comes from Kristen FREAKIN' Ashley's brain. I have a major crush on her..MAJOR. Court: Yep. Major. In addition, I think it is an atrocity that we do not have a Rock Chick/Hot Bunch or Colorado Mountain Man series yet on TV. Major slight, in my opinion, because well...every show can't be about bondage. --- I love your words up there, Shel. KA deserves all of that praise, and more. She seems so nice.Shel: 8. Faye's mulling over Twyla's mullet...and her thoughts on always having room for more in the girl posse...AMEN, Faye, amen. Court: See, girl posse. Love it.Shel: 9. The epilogue. Once again it rocks. Court: It always does.Shel: 10. The promise of Decker and his book. Cannot wait to find time to work my way up to that one. :)Shel: 11. I almost forgot! Frak!!! LOL that word just makes me giggle ..and I really don't giggle. Court: I have been putting this word into use in my vocabulary, as well as "whack" and "throwing sass". KA lingo is taking over my brain.Shel: So there you have it...just a few of the reasons I loved Breathe. Whatcha thinkin' Courtney? Court: I broke the rules and put it up there. So, there you have it. Chase and Faye were classic Kristen Ashley with the alpha male-ness of Chase and the strong heroine of Faye...but they were special to me in a very big way. Loved them. A KA original.Court: Also, if you don't listen to the song Holding Out for a Hero like KA tells you to a million times while reading this, you don't have a heart. j/k j/kCourt: And not to be spoilery we have been very vague about the meat of this book...but let me tell you....IT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND! The end was awesome!Shelley: 5 Stars (really? do you even have to ask?!!!)Courtney: 5 Stars

Faye Goodnight is one of the reasons I have a Chicks-I-Want-to-Hang-Out-With shelf. She is everything I’m looking for in a Book BFF. Reasons I loved her from the beginning….① - She always has her head in a book or nook. She loves to read and read to others.“Yes, I read. And yes, I do it a lot. And yes, I did it before you because life can suck and living in a fantasy world is a lot more fun than living in the real world sometimes. This was not a weak choice, it was an informed one.”② - She has online friends that she chats with about different fandoms that they like and some of her real life bleeds into that.③ - She watches some of the SCI-FI/Fantasy/Just Funny shows I love and will debate different aspects of them with you.“Feed me. If you don’t, all the way to Rosalinda’s, I’m explaining the entirety of the history of Angel, the vampire with a soul given to him by gypsies as punishment for him killing one of their own. This history will range from Buffy the Vampire Slayer through to Angel, his own TV show. I’ll also add my opinions on why they should never have cancelled Angel. I’ll tell you now, this is multi-part and doesn’t all have to do with the fact that David Boreanaz is hot. And, if you delay, I might even have time to get into why I think Joss Whedon should be recommended for sainthood.”④ - She swears using words from Battlestar Galactica….I LOVE IT!!! airsick lowlanders (not from battlestar galactica but something I love to say when appropriate)“The best television show fraking ever.”I disagreed. I loved Battlestar Galactica but Firefly was by far and away the best television show ever, which made its midseason cancellation an act (I thought) of sacrilege. Fortunately, they made a movie about it. And also fortunately, Nathan Fillion moved on to another awesome show, Castle.But nothing topped Fireflydescription⑤ - When she argues with you she loves to throw in various characters from Sci-Fi movies or books to help make her point.“You know, even Darth Vader had the good grace to ask Luke to join him on the dark side.”So yeah Faye and I could totally hang out and be BFFs I’m sure of it. Chace on the other hand….*deep sigh* well he didn’t fare so well.I normally read KA books for the uber alpha males that are great on paper, but seriously if my man said half of the stuff that they say to their women I would just giggle and walk the other way because who could take that seriously….#sorrynotsorry. But Chace is the first KA-alpha in forever that I just didn’t click with. I totally struggled with him as he kept digging his hole deeper and deeper and after Ty in the prior book being so awesome it was difficult to ever click with Chace. Really for the most part I tried to figure out why he deserved a girl as kickass as Faye totally was.The rest of the story was pretty interesting though. Faye and Chace are trying to help a kid who looks like he keeps getting beat up and is probably underfed. As they try to work out who he is and how they can help him the story between the two of them starts to grow. The towns bad cops might be cleaned up but someone is still trying to pull a few strings in this small town and someone definitely wants those sex tapes that are being held in the town back and will go through some serious trouble to get them.I like the storyline with Malachi (the kid they are trying to rescue) but I’m going to just say that KA went a smidgen over on the cheese factor there towards the end and I changed a little that she took it that far. But that said I did like most of the other stuff happening in the story.As always there are some great side characters and we even get a cameo from one of the Rock Chicks…YAY. But Twyla by far stole the show for a minute when she was giving advice to our girl on how to let Chace know she was read for him to take her virginity (because yes of coarse she is a 29 year old virgin…because those are everywhere).Recap:Faye completely and totally awesome - ✔Chace needs some help in the KA-Alpha department - ✔Great side characters as always & a cameo - ✔Town I feel like I could live in - ✔Set-up of our next potential Alpha male - ✔Interesting plot line to supplement the romance - ✔A KIDNAPPING (seriously wouldn’t be a KA book without at least one) - ✔Standard Kristen Ashley Disclaimer: I totally love her books but she is a love it or hate it author and so I almost never recommend her to friends and family for this reason. But I always fall into her stories and don’t come up for air until they are done….even though she breaks all the rules that I usually have for loving or hating a story and I still generally fall on the side of love.

One of my fave authors and I'll definitely read any book she writes.

Outstanding!

This is my third Kristin Ashley book and I must say, a six hundred page romance novel is a novelty that convinced me to purchase this book. A lot of modern romances rely on one or two simple tropes that barely hold the story line together in very few pages. The "Colorado Mountain" series does give the reader a lot of bang for her buck. However, I soon became very distracted by the author's overuse of a certain four-letter word...no, not the obvious one. I can live with male alpha protagonists who pepper their dialogue with the "f" bomb like it's some kind of male prerogative that adds to their sex appeal. Also, with their bizarre inability to start sentences with actual pronouns ("I" doesn't take up too much space in a text, does it?}. Fine, I'll put up with the author's literary conceits, but when the entire book is slathered with the word "cute" on almost every page, the reader soon loses track of the plot and finds herself actually counting up the frequency of this word throughout the book and missing out on the story. I'm almost tempted to reread it with calculator in hand, tallying up the count. What was Ms. Ashley's editor doing when she read this novel? Was she blinking in disbelief every time she came across the word, thereby not seeing it?

Oh Chace, Chace, Chace, how I love thee. Chace Keaton has now become one of my all time fave heros. All his life he has protected his mom as she is such a mentally frail person. His dad is a sexually sick puppy who has always been extra hard on him. So Chace is caught between them and has never had a normal family life even though money has never been a problem as his mother came from money and his father is a powerful politician. Because of his dad's "activities" being filmed and blackmail forces Chace to marry the town slut Misty to protect his mother from finding out his dad is the man he is. We first meet Chace when he was a part of the Carnal dirty police department and is sent to Ty and Lexie's house to search for drugs (which they were supposed to plant) and he is looking at the jewelry that Ty bought Lexie and says Ty always took care of his women but he was pleased to see that Ty finally has a woman worth receiving them - this made Lexie realize Chace wasn't such a bad guy. Chace had been working undercover for some time trying to bring down Arnie Fuller and all the creeps in the Carnal PD so when the story broke he becomes a local hero. Faye Goodknight is the Carnal Librarian and has had a crush on Chace for the last 13 years (since she was 16). As the years passed, Chace noticed Faye as well, but with his life in the toilet and the 6 years he had to endure marriage to Misty, he kept sweet, loving, geeky Faye at arms length - that is until Chace in in Harker's Wood at the same place Misty was murdered and who should show up but sweet Faye - what the heck?????? He insults her to get rid of her and reminds her that a murder was committed here and she should not be out here at 3am or at anytime. They keep meeting and slowly Faye breaks down Chace's walls and what an exciting book, I loved all the supporting characters and am looking forward to Jacob Decker's story in Kaleidoscope. I loved that even Chace's dad redeemed himself (almost) at the end so that Chace can now invite both parents to his wedding - loved that love really can save people and relationships. This was a fantastic book and just loved it - thank you so much Kristin Ashley for a wonderful, exciting experience - one I am thinking about still long after I finished reading.

Beautiful read. This story will make your heart ache and explode with joy. Excellent series, fantastic characters. I bought this in paperback AND on kindle and have read the paperback so many times it’s falling apart. ❤️