Charged by Jay Crownover: Review

Charged by Jay Crownover
Pages: 361


Series: Saints of Denver #2
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Also in this series: Built, Riveted, Salvaged
Also by this author: Asa, Built, Honor, Retreat, Riveted, Salvaged, Shelter, Unbroken, Justified, Unforgiven, Blacklisted, Fortunate Son, Prodigal Son, Son of a Gun

Goodreads

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Marked Men books comes the second installment in the Saints of Denver series featuring a bad girl and a by the book attorney who could be her salvation...or her ruin.

Avett Walker and Quaid Jackson’s worlds have no reason to collide. Ever. Quaid is a high powered criminal attorney as slick as he is handsome. Avett is a pink-haired troublemaker with a bad attitude and a history of picking the wrong men.

When Avett lands in a sea of hot water because of one terrible mistake, the only person who can get her out of it is the insanely sexy lawyer. The last thing on earth she wants to do is rely on the no-nonsense attorney who thinks of her as nothing more than a nuisance. He literally has her fate in his hands. Yet there is something about him that makes her want to convince him to loosen his tie and have a little fun…with her.

Quaid never takes on clients like the impulsive young woman with a Technicolor dye job. She could stand to learn a hard lesson or two, but something about her guileless hazel eyes intrigues him. Still, he’s determined to keep their relationship strictly business. But doing so is becoming more impossible with each day he spends with her.

As they work side-by-side, they’ll have to figure out a way to get along and keep their hands off each other—because the chemistry between them is beyond charged.

Charged
Jay Crownover

I didn’t expect to enjoy Charged as much as I did. I never liked Avett in the previous books; she was bratty, immature, and one bad decision away from total catastrophe! And Quaid was kind of a douche canoe. So, I was dubious that I would enjoy this book at all. Crownover put me in my place with the introduction. I felt that intro was speaking to me! I am one of those people that harshly judges book characters and finds it easy to hate them for a choice without understanding. You, Jay Crownover, are a genius for calling me out on it before the book even started. I was totally judging Avett without knowing her story. And what a story it is. Her story is the story of SO many people. Sometimes, they end up in better places; sometimes they end up in worse places. Avett’s struggles come from a place that everyone can understand even if you haven’t made the same choices she has. And I loved that Quaid saw her for exactly who she was even when others couldn’t or wouldn’t. He recognized her pushing him away was because she felt that she would hold him down. I loved that he knew her well enough to ‘get’ that about her. He could have just taken her brush offs at face value, but he knew her well enough to know why she did the things she did. Overall, this book reminded me why I feel in love with Crownover’s writing in the first place-damaged characters that are easy to judge but dynamic and full of surprises!

Also, I was never an Asa fan. His book was my least favorite in the Marked Men series. Having said that, I LOVED him in Charged. What better person to guide Avett from rock bottom than the man who was there not too long ago? I think I loved Asa more in this book because I felt that his character growth was more complete than it was previously.

And can we talk about the cover of Charged for a second? Because at first, I was not digging it. Now, I think its brilliant! Its eye catching and really does match what I imagine the characters look like. See, Jay Crownover always knows what she is doing, and I need to just trust her! She has yet to disappoint me!

• POV: Dual 1st
• Tears: No
• Trope: star crossed lovers
• Triggers: none
• Series/Standalone: Stand alone; part of an interconnected series
• Cliffhanger: No
• HEA: View Spoiler »Yes! Its a very satisfying ending for Avett and Quaid with a great epilogue! « Hide Spoiler

When I’m with You by Harper Sloan, Fighting to Start by SL Ziegler, Legend by Katy Evans…then you will probably like Charged!

I’m supposed to share interesting details about myself so that my readers get to know me so here we go in no particular order: I’m an natural redhead even though I haven’t seen my real hair color in years, I’m a big fan of tattoos and have a half sleeve on either arm and various other pieces all over the place, I’ve been in the bar industry since I was in college and it has always offered interesting insight into how men and women interact with each other, I have 3 dogs that are all crazy, I live in Colorado and love the snow, I love music and in all reality wish I could be a rock star not a writer or a bartender but I have zero talent so there is that.
I love to write, love to read and all I’m interested in is a good story with interesting characters that make the reader feel something.
Thanks for taking the time to check my stuff out….

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From Charged:

Quaid

I tapped the edge of my thumb on the black-and-white mug shot photo and couldn’t stop the grin from tugging at my mouth.

She tried to fire me.

She was five-foot-nothing, a lifetime younger than me, had multicolored hair that had seen better days, wild eyes that couldn’t decide if they wanted to be green, gold, or brown, while dressed in convict orange and obviously scared out of her ever loving mind, yet she still tried to fire me. If it had been any of my other clients—the cop accused of sexual battery, the frat boy accused of manslaughter over a bet on a football game gone wrong, the middle school teacher accused of pedophilia and having an inappropriate relationship with several of her students, or the pro football player accused of domestic abuse—I would have tipped my proverbial hat, wished them luck while I cut my losses, and walked away without a backward glance. People always committed crimes. People always needed a good defense, so it wasn’t like I was hurting for clients, but there was something about the girl. Something about the defiant tilt of her chin and the raw desperation in her tone when she begged me not to call her father.

“I don’t want your help. I don’t want anything from you.” She sounded like she meant it when she said it, but I figured she was too young and too scared to know exactly what she wanted or needed. Regardless, it was still refreshing to hear.

Everyone always wanted something from me and my help was usually the least of it.

I tapped the picture again, wondering why I found it so easy to believe that she really hadn’t been a part of the boyfriend’s plan to rob the bar. She wasn’t anyone’s idea of a model citizen and she had the shady track record to prove it. She was too young, and frankly too adorable, to have a file this thick. From what I could see, she had a set of parents always willing to ride to the rescue when she got herself into trouble. She looked like some kind of colorful woodland fairy from a Disney movie with her odd hair and delicate features. None of it added up, but the sincerity in her tone when she said she would never have gone with the boyfriend if she knew his intent and the fear in her eyes when I mentioned her father seemed genuine.

I learned long ago to treat everyone like they were guilty of whatever it was I was paid to defend them against. I didn’t want to know the truth. I didn’t want to know the circumstances. I wanted my clients to listen to me and let me do my job as I tried to convince the rest of the world they were innocent, regardless if they were or not. But this girl with her faded, rose colored hair and turbulent eyes oozed innocence through the cracks of a very guilty façade.

Because I was intrigued and actually believed the girl might be innocent, I wasn’t going to let her fire me. I was going to call her father and hope that he would help me keep her out of the slammer while I figured out how to plea bargain her charges down or get them dismissed altogether. Again, because a cop was involved in the robbery and because the boyfriend, junkie or not, was offering up a pretty plausible explanation for Avett’s involvement in the crime, nothing was a slam dunk, yet. I was going to help her whether she wanted me to or not.

 

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