Review: Games of the Heart (The 'Burg #4) by Kristen Ashley

Title: Games of the Heart 
By: Kristen Ashley
Series: The 'Burg #4
My Copy: Amazon.com
Book Whisperer's Rating: 

From the balcony of his house, Mike Haines can see the quiet, commonplace beauty of the Holliday farm. But what he remembers is the little sister of his high school girlfriend, Dusty who grew up there. As a teen, Dusty had gone off the rails but when she was a kid, she was sweet, she was funny and she had a special bond with Mike. But after high school, she took off and Mike never saw her again.

Then tragedy strikes Dusty's family, she comes back into town and Mike thinks she hasn't changed back to the sweet, funny girl he knew but instead continued to be selfish and thoughtless, leaving her family alone to deal with their mourning. So he seeks her out and confronts her in an effort to understand what went wrong and to force her to sort herself out.

He finds out quickly he's wrong about Dusty Holliday. Very wrong. And right after Mike discovers that, the bond they had years before snaps back into place in ways he would never suspect.

But Mike Haines had a bad marriage then he played games of the heart for a good woman. And lost. In order to protect himself and his kids, he's cautious, he's careful to read the signs and he's not interested in finding a woman he has to fix.

Then he learns what happened to Dusty and he thinks she needs to be fixed. He swings, he misses and in this new game of hearts, for Dusty, Mike just got strike three.

I think every time I start a review on one of Kristen Ashley’s book, I always rave about the book, her writing, how much I love her, and how much I love the characters in the book.  This review will be no different.  I LOVE Kristen Ashley!!!! I love her writing, I loved this book, and I would marry the characters in this book.

Ever since Vi’s book, I have loved Mike.  I loved Vi and Joe so much together that I was okay with Mike getting his heart broken because I knew KA would make it right later.  And she did!  His relationship with Dusty is perfect, sexy, sweet, super hot, and all that it should be.  Like every KA couple, they are meant to be. 

In most KA books, there is always some threat of violence looming over the couple’s head (a drama that I do love) but this book was mild compared to the others.  Yes, drama happened, but it was a different kind of drama that sucked me in. 

Also, the romance between Mike and Dusty was unreal but on the side is a romance happening between a very young Rees and Fin.  The heated romance between the adults and the simple, starting romance between the teenagers kept me in a love realm and I could not complain.  Fin is like a mini Mike; alpha male, protective, sweet but also a manly man.  Both relationships were amazing to read about.

I loved that Mike had kids and how he treated them.  They are the absolute world to him and how KA wrote that love made me fall in love with Mike even more.

There were some things that I would have like KA to expand on.  I would have liked to read how Finn took the news about learning that there was a break in and I would have loved, LOVED a whole book just on Rees and Finn by themselves when they were older.  I know we got a small taste in the epilogue but I really need more.  Now I am just left with imagining their lives and I don’t have as good as an imagination as KA has.  That is why I rely on her to do great writing while I do the great reading.