Nobody But You - Blog Tour Review + Giveaway

Nobody But You (Cedar Ridge #3) by Jill Shalvis Rating:  Good
Source:  NetGalley

Description:  Sometimes you can go home again...
After an overseas mission goes wrong, Army Special Forces officer Jacob Kincaid knows where he must go to make things right: back home to the tiny town of Cedar Ridge, Colorado.  All he needs to scrub away his painful past is fresh mountain air, a lakeside cabin, and quiet solitude. But what he discovers is a gorgeous woman living on a boat at his dock.  Sophie Marren has nowhere else to go.  She's broke, intermittently seasick, and fighting a serious attraction to the brooding, dishy, I'm too sexy for myself guy who's now claiming her dock.  Something about Jacob's dark intensity makes her want to tease - and tempt - him beyond measure. Neither one wants to give any ground... until they realize the only true home they have is with each other. (from Goodreads)

Genre: Romance - Contemporary

Why I Picked This Book: It's Jill Shalvis.  That's pretty much all I needed to see.  I love her books.

My Impression: Oh how a I love Jill Shalvis' book!  I've really enjoyed her Animal Magnetism series (even though the last one made me want to adopt 3 kittens and a Bernese Mountain Dog)) and her Lucky Harbor series is one of my all time favorites when it comes to contemporary romance.  But for some reason I haven't read this series until I picked up this book.  I had no problem figuring out what the family dynamics and the situation in general.  Part of this is because Jacob is just returning to Cedar Ridge and part of this is because Shalvis always does a good job with letting you jump in where ever and not be confused.
I loved getting to know the Kincaids and seeing their unusual family dynamic.  Jacob's brother and sister, Hud and Kenna are definitely strong characters but don't take over the book and we get a glimps of two of Jacob's other brothers. Jacob himself is an interesting character in his own right.  He has the weight of the world of his shoulders and his automatic response is to be stoic.  Between his military career and his not so happy break from his family he has a lot of guilt and an overriding need to fix things.  He's calm and collected under pressure but his social graces are a bit on the awkward side.  Other than a strained relationship with her family, Sophie is as opposite as she can be.  She's a bundle of energy going all directions at all times frequently with disastrous results.  She's coming off a brutal divorce and is trying to put her life back together.  Sophie reminds me a little bit of my older son, Paul.  We have a joke around here that there's the right way, the wrong way, and the Paul way.  The way he chooses to do things is not wrong but it's way harder than it needs to be and Sophie has a similar method. But even though I want to yell "Just sell the damn boat, Sophie" for the first half of the book I liked her.  She's genuine and good-hearted and is very self-aware about what traits in herself sent her into the pitfalls that turned her life upside down.
I like Jacob and Sophie together.  They balance each other out in a lot of ways and really encourage each other to face their fears and be better people.  It's fun watching them interact whether it's witty banter or when he's teaching her the finer points of paddle boarding.  Her issues and his issues make sense given their lives so when things do crop up, even though I want to give them both a good talking too, I understood what was happening.  The chemistry between them was seriously flaming and I enjoyed watching their friendship and their relationship develop.
While I did enjoy the ending, it did end up feeling a little disjointed.  There are so many strings to be tied up that it felt a little jumpy and rushed.  There were a couple of subplots that I wanted just a little bit more one and I don't think we're going to get them.  I am excited that I already have the previous 2 books in the series because I cannot wait to go back and get to know the rest of the Kincaid family a little better!

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Would I Read More of this Series/Author?: Of course!  I'm looking forward to reading the previous books of this series and anything else she writes.

Would I Recommend this Book?: I'd definitely recommend this author and this book is solid as well.  It probably isn't one of my favorites but it's still a fun read with well fleshed out characters.