Chelsea M. Cameron

After her life is shattered one fateful night, Jos Archer, still trying to pick up the pieces, transfers to a new college where she meets campus bad boy Dusty Sharp who helps her feel normal again, but who is hiding his own secrets that could tear them apart. Original.

My Sweetest Escape

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My Sweetest Escape is the second book in Chelsea M. Cameron's My Favorite Mistake series. It's a standalone series, but there's character overlap. I happened upon My Favorite Mistake, the first book, last year before I started blogging. It was a fantastic read, and the start of my love affair with Chelsea's books. Hunter and Taylor were such vibrant characters and their chemistry was fantastic. I hoped for more of the same with My Sweetest Mistake, but unfortunately it fell just a wee bit short for me. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy the book. I did. I just didn't connect with the characters in the same way as I did the first. 
Jos Archer was the girl who had it all, but she's fallen apart, and been sent to live with her older sister, Renee so she can go to school and pull herself together. We never really get to know "perfect Jos," since the story begins after the night everything fell apart. It takes quite a bit of time before we find out exactly what happened that night and, when we do, it's understandable why she would be broken and feeling guilty. I felt sympathy for Jos, but I just didn't like her that much. Something about her really rubbed me the wrong way and I've been unable to figure out just what it was. 

She meets Dusty Sharp through her sister and her friends. He's a giant puzzle, but a yummy one (to me, at least). It took awhile until I got a read on him, he played everything pretty close, so it was difficult to figure him out. But once I did, I adored him. He and Jos have an immediate attraction and, in the end, have more in common than I originally thought. They worked well together. 
What I truly loved about the book was that we truly got to know a lot of characters. Taylor and Hunter are back, as are Renee, Paul, Darah and Mase. And my new favorite secondary character ever: Hannah. Hannah needs her own book. She was amazing. Sassy, spunky and real... and a fantastic friend to Jos. I'm so sick of bad girlfriend behavior in books, so Hannah truly was a breath of fresh air. I love how the dynamics of these characters was explored. The relationships and friendships felt real. The dialogue was great. The only thing was, I felt like sometimes all these characters overshadowed Jos and Hunter, but I don't know that it's a bad thing.

As I've come to expect from Chelsea, My Sweetest Escape was well-written, with well-developed and interesting characters. It was a fair bit angsty, a little sexy and had a surprising twist that connected the characters and truly shocked me. It was a good, quick, read. I hope there's more to this series (cough, Hannah, cough) because I do find it enjoyable. 

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

My Sweetest Escape

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