Before Girl by Kate Canterbary Series: Vital Signs #1
Published by Vesper Press on November 12, 2018
Genres: Erotica, Romance, Sports Romance
Amazon
She's the girl next door. He's the guy who's loved her from afar.They're in for an unexpected tumble into love.
She'll juggle your balls.
For Stella Allesandro, chaos is good. She's a rising star at a leading sports publicity firm. She's known throughout the industry as the jock whisperer—the one who can tame the baddest of the bad boys in professional sports without losing her signature smile.
But Cal Hartshorn is an entirely different kind of chaos.He'll fix your broken heart.
This ex-Army Ranger and now-famous cardiothoracic surgeon fails at nothing…except talking to a woman he's adored from afar. Whether on the battlefield or operating room, he's exacting, precise, and efficient, but all of that crumbles when Stella is in sight.
Cal always knows—and gets—what he wants, and now he wants all of her. His forever girl.
But Stella isn't convinced she's anyone's forever.
I went gaga over Before Girl, and I really couldn’t tell you why. The beginning has a big hurdle that fortunately I was able to overcome.
Dr. Cal Hartshorn is a heart surgeon who has admired sports manager Stella Alessandro from afar every day for the past eight months. He’s too shy to approach her, but when finally forced to talk to her, he suddenly goes from Mr. Bashful to a guy throwing out crude pick-up lines left and right. Completely douchey and it made me not buy the whole shy guy angle that was pushed so hard, but I fell for him anyway. Like I said, I’m not sure why I enjoyed this story so much, but I did.
Maybe it’s because Cal holds nothing back. There is no playing it cool with this man. He loves intensely and lays all of his feelings for Stella right out there knowing she could step all over his heart. He’s giving, supportive, and non-judgemental.
Maybe it’s because Stella is an ambitious, successful, strong woman who enjoys sex and is unapologetic in making sure her… um… needs get met. Or maybe it’s her crazy parents who are wildly entertaining.
Maybe it’s because I love a good dirty talker, and—man, oh man—Cal could teach a master class in the art of panty melting dirty talk.
Maybe it’s because Cal is over 40, Stella is in her mid-30s, and there are precious few sexy romances featuring older main characters. These two burn up the sheets!! I love that even though they’re flawed, they’re old enough to know what they want and mature enough to go after it without wading through a lack of communication and a bunch of unnecessary bs.
I don’t know what it was, but I had a smile on my face throughout. This was the first book by Kate Canterbary I’ve read; I’m already looking for more.
Recommended for fans of:
Doctors
Romances with older characters
Dirty talkers
About Kate Canterbary
Kate Canterbary doesn’t have it all figured out, but this is what she knows for sure: spicy-ass salsa and tequila solve most problems, living on the ocean–Pacific or Atlantic–is the closest place to perfection, and writing smart, smutty stories is a better than any amount of chocolate.
She started out reporting for an indie arts and entertainment newspaper back when people still read newspapers, and she has been writing and surreptitiously interviewing people—be careful sitting down next to her on an airplane—ever since.
Kate lives on the water in New England with Mr. Canterbary and the Little Baby Canterbary, and when she isn’t writing sexy architects, she’s scheduling her days around the region’s best food trucks.
This was your first Canterbary novel? I just started reading her this year, too. I started with The Cornerstone. It was smack in the middle of the series, but I loved it. I have now read her entire backlist. Some are better than others. I also enjoyed this one. I would really recommend The Walsh series.
I’ve heard the Walsh series is really good. There are a lot of books so they must be a big family. LOL!
They are a big family. Although, Sam got 2 books.