Good Girl Gone Plaid - Book Review

By Shelli Stevens

Synopsis

Falling for the bad boy is even more dangerous the second time around.

In high school Sarah fell for her best friend’s older brother–one of the sexy, Scottish McLaughlin boys. But a painful betrayal showed her she’d been a fool to give her heart to a bad boy. At least it made it easier to leave him and move halfway around the world when her Navy dad got stationed in Japan.

Eleven years later, the death of her grandmother has forced Sarah back to Whidbey Island for a month. It’s the length of time she must stay in her inherited house before she’s allowed to sell it, take the money and run. But when she sees Ian, bad as ever and still looking like sin on a stick, she can’t keep her mouth from watering.

One look at Sarah stirs up the regret lingering in Ian’s heart–and never-forgotten desire lingering in his body. He should walk away, especially since divorced single mothers aren’t his style. But when she starts showing up at his family’s pub, he can’t resist a little casual seduction for old time’s sake.

One thing quickly becomes clear, though. The heat between them is causing an avalanche of secrets and betrayal and nothing will ever be the same.

Review

GOOD GIRL GONE PLAID is a second-chance romance between Ian and Sarah, and I seem to have read so many second-chance romances lately that they’re all starting to blend together.

Ian was a difficult guy to like at the beginning because of how he treated Sarah. He’s the reason they broke up all those years ago, yet he had no problem making nasty comments and flaunting another woman in her face, knowing it would hurt her. Sometimes he was mean even when she was reluctantly nice to him and giving him compliments. He seems to turn things around though when he finds out Sarah’s secret and loses a lot of his attitude. Sarah was a nice woman, but to be honest, I don’t really remember much about her. I can’t remember the sex scenes either, but I do remember that Ian was a little cheesy when trying to convince Sarah to sleep with him again. I liked the rest of the McLaughlin siblings⎯Aleck, Colin and Kenzie⎯as well as Sarah’s daughter, Emily.

GOOD GIRL GONE PLAID is told in dual POVs, with part of the final chapter being told in Hailey’s POV, who will get book two along with Colin. A couple of bad guys are introduced here but their stories are incomplete, so I assume we’ll be seeing more of them in the future books. From memory, this story takes place in the span of a week or two, but I wouldn’t call this an insta-love given that Ian and Sarah had a previous relationship. Overall, I thought this was a nice and easy⎯if somewhat predictable⎯read that had me wanting to read the next book in the series. It comes with a HEA and doesn’t end in a cliffhanger.