Author: Christina Lee
Publisher: Penguin/InterMix
Pages/Word Count: 250 Pages
At a Glance: Good romance, good steam, and some action and heavier drama towards the end. I would absolutely recommend this one!!
Reviewed By: Jules
Blurb: Tattoo artist Cory Easton has worked long enough at Raw Ink to know, just by looking at a dude, what his body art reveals, what makes him tick, what even makes him scared. Until he meets the quiet and remote Jude York—so unreadable, so unreachable, and so unlike anyone else, he can’t help but arouse Cory’s curiosity.
As captivating and complex as his ink, Jude is a mystery—and Cory’s falling fast and hard under his spell. Against his better judgment to steer clear.
The rumors of Jude’s past overshadow him—whispers of prison and an unmentionable secret that’s kept him in the protective shadows of a local motorcycle club. As Cory probes deeper, he wonders how much he really wants to know. Especially since Jude has awakened something inside him that has been buried too long—and has him feeling completely alive for the first time in forever…
Review: Hunky tattoo artist?? Mysterious, inked up skater?? Where do I sign?! The blurb – and the sexy cover – for There You Stand hooked me immediately. And, for the most part, the book lived up to my expectations.
Cory is a nice guy. He works at Raw Ink, knows most everyone in town, and has a pretty cheerful disposition in spite of being recently burned by a guy who ditched town and left his unruly dog behind. And, he is very smitten with the mysterious Jude York. Jude is a young, dread-locked, tattooed, skaterboy, who works at the skate shop next to the local biker bar The Hog’s Den. The entire town is intrigued by Jude – What’s his story? Where’d he come from? Why doesn’t he talk? – but, none as much as Cory, who watches him skate at the park almost every day, and finds him incredibly beautiful.
Chopper, the aforementioned unruly dog, takes off on Cory at the park one day and winds up being the catalyst to get Jude and Cory talking. Well, as much as Jude talks, that is. He is a man of few words, which frustrates the hell out of Cory initially, but they find a cute workaround one day when Cory decides to try a game of ‘True or False’ while working on Jude’s new tattoo at the shop.
There is clearly some pretty heavy danger surrounding Jude, and Cory has a tragedy of his own to overcome, but eventually they begin communicating, and the obvious passion and attraction they have for each other comes to the surface. And, let me tell you, these guys are HOT together! The chemistry between them is great, especially once they start to really make a connection. They fall hard for each other, but it’s definitely paced well and believable.
I dug the mystery and the drama in the storyline. I’m sure the SOA fans will especially like the involvement of the MC. I know I did. Things definitely get moving in the second half of the book; that’s where it really started to work for me. The writing in the beginning felt a little choppy and didn’t flow as well as the second two-thirds of the book, which I really enjoyed. I also really liked all the secondary characters. Vaughn and Smoke, members of the MC, were awesome. All of Cory’s friends from the shop (a few of which are the main characters in a couple of the other books in Christina Lee’s Between Breaths series) are very cool. And, Cory’s relationship with his grandma is wonderful. Overall, good romance, good steam, and some action and heavier drama towards the end. I would absolutely recommend this one!!
You can buy There You Stand here:
