Sunday, February 7, 2016

{ arc } review || JAGGER by M.J. Fields and Chelsea Camaron


25982511
Loveswept | April 12, 2016 | Sport Romance
Caldwell Brothers, book 3
★★★★★

SOURCE: PUBLISHER via NETGALLEY

Jagger Caldwell is no one’s hero. With a reputation busting heads and breaking hearts on the underground MMA circuit, he lives for easy cash and easier women. But when he stumbles upon an all-too-familiar scene, painful memories awaken Jagger’s sensitive side and compel him to act. As a kid, he stood by helplessly as his old man beat his mom. Now, Jagger won’t let seventeen-year-old Tatiana Rand suffer the same fate. Nothing matters except saving her.

Tatiana is a prisoner in her own home, at the mercy of her violent father—until an unlikely savior bursts through her door and into her life. Six-feet-plus of tattooed muscle and raw power, Jagger is no prince charming—but Tatiana stopped believing in fairy tales long ago. Despite their differences in age and, well, everything else, the sexy bad boy sparks a fire that Tatiana never knew she had—and desires that only Jagger can quench.

{ review } .

Please note: There was a ton of excitement when writing this review. I don't believe there are spoilers, but sometimes my excitement gets the best of me...

Jagger was a drop-everything-to-read book. It didn't matter that I had a book due on Monday, let alone 3 more due Tuesday, with a grand total of 10 tour-review books this week (not to mention the other reading commitments). This was a book I had been waiting for so ever-impatiently since finishing Morrison.

And yes, it was everything I wanted and more.

When I read Hendrix, I wanted to follow up with Morrison's book simply because I loved this writing duo and the siblingship they created. I didn't think I could like Morrison any more than I liked his brother -- but I was oh so wrong. And while I knew there wasn't any possible way Jagger could top Morrison (and really, he didn't... Morrison and Hailey and his little little chick are just too freaking cute), I knew that Jagger was going to bring forth his own demons that occurred from the loss of the men's mother and the bastardish ways of their father.

Jagger has a huge chip on his shoulder, but at the same time, he doesn't believe in abuse -- he lived through it, he won't put up with it. And with that is how he meets his someday happily ever after.

Tatiana is terrified to leave home, but at the same time, terrified to be home. At seventeen, she doesn't have much by the way of choices, but when Jagger first offers her a way out --

She doesn't take it.

I loved watching Jagger watch Tatiana from the sidelines. He knew better than to touch her, and he learned first hand that rescuing her wasn't something that was in the cards. But he helped her the only way he knew he could. While Tatiana's character is young, she had a very mature personality -- hard not to with the life she lived. Days before turning eighteen, Jagger rescues her yet again (she shows her strength in this particular scene -- but again and again throughout the story) but keeps his distance. Again, he knows better than to touch her.

When she turned eighteen, though, all bets were off.

My body feels like it is on fire as the fury builds. How can the man who saved me be such a barbarian? --Tatiana

I appreciated that Tatiana was scared of Jagger's fighting -- in her world, beating on another person was done for one reason only. After living that life for eighteen years, that's not something that can be erased, and I felt the authors handled that extremely well, as well as Jagger's response.

Also handled well was the suspense line that is drawn in this story. I found that it allowed Jagger's emotions to be fully exposed for the reader. I did, though, feel that Tatiana's feelings toward Jagger (especially so quickly) could be mistaken for hero-worship, but... sometimes these things can be easily overlooked to a reader, aka this reader.

"Don't you see? You are everything good in this bad, bad world of mine. Hold me back, hold me any way you want to, but please, I beg you, just hold me and don't let go." --Jagger

Additionally, there's a major change in Tatiana's life that one would think she would be ecstatic about, but again, handled incredibly well, her grief comes through. The authors' ability to write these characters' psyches was on-par and completely appropriate for the situations.

My only negative point to this story would be that once Tatiana and Jagger were together, once that magical number eighteen happened, the romance aspect of the story -- the emotion, the growth as a couple -- felt stagnant; it didn't quite grow or dwindle, it was just there and straight. As a reader, we watched Jagger's emotion grow the months leading up to her turning eighteen, and we watch his possessiveness, as well as protectiveness (the best part...) play a part but I just felt that a little something more was missing.

But... like that hero-worship thought, this was something that didn't really bother me. It was actually only something I thought about in hindsight, while reflecting on the story. I found Jagger to be an excellent conclusion to the story (and I still loved the overlap from the other books, seeing scenes in Jagger's and Totty's eyes), and found Baby Caldwell to have just as much emotional capacity as his brothers. These men certainly lived the way their mother wanted them to, and with that, her legacy lives.

Love shouldn't hurt...

{ previous reviews in series } .

Hendrix 5★ review }
Morrison 5★ review }

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