Review: Hero ~ Samantha Young

Hero
Samantha Young
Contemporary Romance
NAL/February 3, 2015

Alexa Holland’s father was her hero—until her shocking discovery that she and her mother weren't his only family. Ever since, Alexa has worked to turn her life in a different direction and forge her own identity outside of his terrible secrets. But when she meets a man who’s as damaged by her father’s mistakes as she is, Alexa must help him.

Caine Carraway wants nothing to do with Alexa’s efforts at redemption, but it’s not so easy to push her away. Determined to make her hate him, he brings her to the edge of her patience and waits for her to walk away. But his actions only draw them together and, despite the odds, they begin an intense and explosive affair.

Only Caine knows he can never be the white knight that Alexa has always longed for. And when they're on the precipice of danger, he finds he’ll do anything to protect either one of them from being hurt again…

~This review is of the audio book, narrated by Angelica Lee, a new favorite.

If the title is referring to Caine Carraway, not sure I agree. I didn't like him for much of the book. Once his deep, dark secret is revealed, I still thought he acted an ass towards Alexa far too often but at least I understood why.

Alexa is a strong woman who has suffered a terribly stressful family life. It's her family that connects her to Caine. Their first meeting is memorable but not in a good way. Alexa saved the story for me. I didn't always agree with her choices, I thought she put up with too much crap from Caine but when she did tell him exactly how she felt, she didn't mince words.

Their relationship is such a roller coaster ride. First Caine can't stand Alexa but he's physcaattracted to her which frustrates him. Which I find amusing because I didn't like him at the beginning and I didn't think he deserved her. As their work relationship progresses, Alexa starts to break through Caine's wall of indifference and I liked how we did get to see a nicer side of him. But then the wall would go up again and he would do something to Alexa that would piss me off and I wanted to tell her to just walk away from him.

As you can tell, Caine was not a favorite of mine. He left me so angry with him far too many times which made it a challenge to find any affinity for him let alone see him as a hero. I wold have like to see more of his kindness because it was there but he tries his best to keep it in the shadows. Ultimately, I did start to like Caine a little bit towards the end.

As much as I loved Samantha Young's On Dublin Street series, Hero didn't have the same romantic feel to it. The romance was not as satisfying as what I'd hope for. The writing of Ms. Young is still wonderful, these characters simply didn't do it for me.

Rating: B-