Book Review + Giveaway: A Pound of Flesh by Sophie Jackson

Title: A Pound of Flesh (A Pound of Flesh #1)
Author: Sophie Jackson
Publisher: Gallery Books
Release Date: June 9, 2015
Pages: 448
Source: Publisher
Format: ARC
Age Group: Adult
Genre: Contemporary Romance

            

Haunted by nightmares of her father’s street murder fifteen years ago, Kat Lane decides to face her fears and uphold his legacy of helping others by teaching inmates at a New York prison. There she meets arrogant Wesley Carter, who’s as handsome as he is dangerous, as mysterious as he is quick-witted, and with a reputation that ensures people will keep their distance.
As teacher and student, Kat and Carter are forced to leave their animosities at the door and learn that one should never judge a book by its cover. As Carter’s barriers begin to crumble, Kat realizes there’s much more to her angry student than she thought, leaving them to face a new, perilous obstacle: their undeniable attraction to one another.
When Carter is released and Kat continues to tutor him on the outside, the obstacles mount. Can they fight the odds to make their relationship work? Will Kat’s family and friends ever accept her being with someone of his background? And will Kat’s discovery of Carter’s role on the night her father died force them apart forever...or unite them?

My. Lord. Jesus.

This book is hot. I mean seriously hot.

The amount of sexual tension and verbal foreplay between Kat and Carter is explosive.

Thank you Sophie Jackson for not giving me instalove. You gave me a slow burn that was excruciatingly and painfully pleasant.

Written in the third person, it took me a while to get into A Pound of Flesh. The end of Chapter 4 is when I started becoming invested in story of Kat and Carter, but by the end of Chapter 10, I was 100% hooked. I am glad that I stuck with the book, even though, for me, the beginning was not as addictive as I would have liked, especially for this genre. However, in retrospect, I am glad that Sophie Jackson gave such a great back story, and slowly introduced us to our protagonists, because it elevated the story from a "summer contemporary fluff read", to a story with meaning, that is plot and character driven. I always appreciate it when an author can combine sexiness with an actual story line.

I was quickly able to connect with Kat's charterer because like her, I am a teacher. I really appreciated the books, plays, and poems mentioned, in addition to the intelligent conversation Kat and Carter had when discussing literary works. I liked that they were intellectual equals. Intelligence really is a turn on, and being able to have a stimulating conversation with a tall, gorgeous, tattooed rough neck...YES PLEASE!

So, even though I really liked this book, here is where it fell short for me.

1. I felt like Kat was not as strong as I would have liked her to be. In the beginning, I was all Team Kat because she was strong and feisty and didn't take shit from any of the inmates. But then as the story began to unfold, Kat was not as internally strong as she was outwardly projecting, and that bothered me. Especially when it came to her mother and her supposed "best friend". She let these two women run all over her and it REALLY pissed me off. I also felt that Kat relied too much on Carter, emotionally speaking. In her eyes, Carter is her savior and the only one who can help her. No...help yourself.

2. When Kat and Carter finally do have sex, it fell flat for me. With all the tension leading up to the actual act, I was ready for an explosion of epic proportions, and I so did not get that. And what was exceedingly weird, was that it was told from Carter's POV. Now, don't get me wrong, I love a good sex scene told from the male POV, but I'm a woman, reading a book for women, I need to be able to place myself in the book as the "heroine", and giving me a sex scene from the male POV does not help me become one with the character. I could care less how the male feels, tell me how it feels for the woman! I mean really, isn't that all that matters? Or is that just me...? Plus, Carter was very "girly" with his play by play of the consummation, so that was hella awkward.

However, overall, like I said, I REALLY liked this book. It took a bit for me to get hooked, but once I was, I couldn't, and didn't want to, put this book down.

a Rafflecopter giveaway