Review: The First Taste by Jessica Hawkins (Slip of the Tongue #2)

Note: This ARC was provided by Social Butterfly PR in exchange for an honest review.

Well, hello and color me surprised. Talk about a book that evoked a very different and varied set of reactions from me compared to its predecessor. I read The First Taste right after finishing Slip of the Tongue and so I confess my less than thrilled response to the latter had me wary and tentative when I started this story about tatted up single dad and kinda, sorta, maybe reformed bad boy Andrew Beckwith and workaholic, independent, and kinda, sorta, maybe ice queen Amelia Van Ecken. Neither one of them is looking to be in a committed relationship with every single string available to first entangle them and then choke the life out of them, but there shouldn't be any harm in indulging in one hassle-free, for pure sexual gratification moment together. It doesn't matter that neither one is each other's usual type. If anything, it should work out better. There won't be lingering thoughts of "what if..." or coming back for seconds. One taste and one taste only and they go back to their regularly scheduled lives...but one taste is rarely enough.

Andrew Beckwith only has two females in his life that matter: his sister Sadie, married and expecting her first child with her husband Nathan Hunt, and his daughter Bell. He's all for hooking up whenever the mood strikes, but his main focus is Bell and he wouldn't have it any other way. His sister constantly prods him into dating or at least trying to find a woman to spend his time with. While he appreciates her concern, Andrew doesn't want to be in a relationship, so when he meets Sadie's boss and it's clear that she isn't interested in any sort of romantic entanglement either, they spend one night together--if it even qualified as an entire night. Then Andrew sees Amelia Van Ecken again and the desire to satisfy each other's needs and wants is too strong to resist. This is all temporary, after all. Amelia doesn't even like children, so she shouldn't even be someone to be considered for a single father like Andrew. But the more these two opposites are together, the more what they have is beginning to feel anything but temporary...

I liked Andrew and I liked Amelia, even though she did come off as somewhat of a bitch in the beginning. There's a familiarity to the basic story line of temporary becoming permanent but author Jessica Hawkins brought her own flavor to it, giving readers an enticing story and engaging characters. You know that this non-relationship is eventually going to become something more and you know that one or both of them is going to kick and scream their way into denial, but you keep reading because you become invested in their love story. Aside from Andrew and Amelia's tale, I adored how Andrew was with his daughter Bell. It's clear that she is and will always be the love of his life and the struggle to make sure she grows up to be more independent but still wanting her to cling onto him from time to time is very real. Nathan and Sadie Hunt also appear in this story and I'm sorry but I am still anti-Sadie. I do wonder, though, if Finn will ever get his own happily-ever-after, and fingers crossed that he does. The First Taste gets four out of five stars. ♥

Date Read: 10 August 2016

Learn more about Jessica Hawkins.

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