Review: I Wish You Were Mine by Lauren Layne (Oxford #2)


Note: This ARC was provided by Random House Publishing Group - Loveswept in exchange for an honest review.

It was so much more than a fling. If she thought she'd been in love with Jackson Burke at twenty, that had been nothing compared to what she felt for him now. He was someone she could talk to. Laugh with. The sex was amazing, true, but she could no longer let herself pretend that Jackson Burke was a glorified booty call.


He was more. He'd always been so much more.


I have yet to read every single Lauren Layne-penned story that's been released--I'm at four books so far, two from two different series--but I'm already considering I Wish You Were Mine, the second novel in her Oxford contemporary romance series my favorite and one of the best reads I've come across this year. With a hint of taboo thrown on top of the lighthearted and sweet moments and the racier and more passionate ones, this love story between a recently forced-into-retirement NFL star quarterback and his former sister-in-law kept me up till the wee hours of the morning. There was simply no way that I could have put my tablet down and waited until the next day, so for two and a half hours, I fell in love with Jackson Burke and Mollie Carrington's story. It felt honest and real and had my heart squeeing in delight when Jackson and Mollie were discovering how amazing and natural they were together and squeezing tightly in empathy when misunderstanding and miscommunication threatened to derail what they shared.

Mollie fell in love with Jackson on the night of his wedding with her older sister, Madison. Eight years and one divorce later, twenty-eight-year-old Mollie and thirty-five-year-old Jackson find themselves in the same state--New York--thanks to Jackson now working as the fitness editor of Oxford, the leading men's magazine in the country. He's still trying to deal with the fact that his professional football career ended before he was even ready to contemplate retiring. He's going through the motions, but refuses to fully embrace his new world order. Connecting with his now-former sister-in-law and the one person who knows him best and accepts him, flaws and all becomes a turning point for Jackson. Mollie is no longer the girl she once was and seeing her in a whole new light leads to Jackson stuck in an inner struggle to not feel the attraction that he does. But while all this may be new to Jackson, Molly has long had feelings for him, but choosing between her loyalty to her sister and her love for Jackson is more difficult than she thought.

There's no such thing as smooth sailing when it comes to any relationship, but when you fall in love with someone you used to consider family, "complication" doesn't seem apt enough a word to describe what you're up against. Aside from falling for Mollie, Jackson is also forced to face the reality that he is no longer a football player and will never wield a football the way he used to prior to the accident that ended his career. I liked Jackson, but I must admit that there were a couple of times that the man needed a reality check, especially when it came to his manipulative ex-wife. Mollie was the perfect partner for him, but there wouldn't be much of a story if he realized it sooner than he did, right? I loved Mollie, but the girl also saw her sister and their relationship through overly rose-colored glasses, though I think if she were honest with herself, Mollie knew what kind of person Madison was. After I Wish You Were Mine, I added the Stiletto series and the upcoming Someone Like You to my to-be-read list. This sequel gets five-plus stars. ♥

Release Date: 02 February 2016

Date Read: 02 February 2016

Learn more about Lauren Layne.

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  1. Thank you for featuring and reviewing I WISH YOU WERE MINE!

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