This review was originally posted on Addicted To Romance The Gamble is the first book in the Colorado Mountain series and I have to say that I was vastly impressed with this one here. I just love Kristen Ashley, and I understand that her writing style and her characters aren't for everyone, but I love them so much and I find them really easy to relate with and I always know that this author will give me some great laughs that will prove entertaining. Now I just haven't gotten around to all the great classic series by Ashley and after finishing up the Rock Chick series I knew it was time for her Colorado Mountain books. Especially since I do own a few of these in print and are just sitting on my shelf collecting dust. The Gamble starts off with our heroine, who is a Brit and has come to this small town in Colorado for some peace, relaxation and think about whether or not to stay with her current boyfriend. Nina knows that he is a good guy and hasn't ever treated her badly like her previous men in her life, but she also isn't happy. She doesn't feel like he even cares for her and wants to do some reflecting so when she sees an ad online for a beautiful a-line mountain cabin for rent for a couple of weeks, she goes for it. But when she arrives, she is getting the flu, there is a terrible snowstorm and what she thinks is a ready place available is NOT open and already has a man living there who isn't very nice about the mix up and so after a verbal spat she leaves and drives into a ditch and then wakes up in the cabin after being cared for by the current resident Holden "Max" Maxwell. Nina doesn't know what to make of Max, he is a bit way too domineering for her liking, but she hasn't ever felt such chemistry with someone like she does with Max. She likes how she feels when she is around him and even though there is a part of her that wants to just go back to Denver, she reluctantly stays and discovers that how Max treats her with such care and consideration is more than her current boyfriend has even shown for her. After being around Max, she begins to realize that she hasn't really been "in" her current relationship  and starts something with Max and sees where it goes, but while Max and Nina explore this new fresh relationship there is a murderer in town and their lives may be in danger from the most unsuspecting individual they would least expect. “Not one fuckin’ thing gentlemanly about protecting what’s yours. Looks like you’re gonna lose it, you do everything you can to stop that from happening.” Max looked back to Niles. “And you didn’t do that. She was a week away from me, she walked into a room I was in holdin’ another man’s hand, I’d lose my fuckin’ mind. Not at her. Wonderin’ where I lost my way and I’d talk to her about how to find my way back.” The Gamble was simply a true treasure and I loved it. I won't say it's my favorite Kristen Ashley book because Knight is still in that spot, however, I fell in love with many aspects of this story here and it was so superbly written. I was curious to see how this series would be handled and how the set up of this series would occur and I want to say to Kristen Ashley WELL DONE because I love mountainous regions and love books set around Montana, Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Wyoming. So to have one of my favorite states which is Colorado, to be the setting I was thrilled especially a mountain small town and I felt that Kristen Ashley really handled the details of it perfectly. Now I know sometimes her detailed are a bit too much for some, but I LOVE details. And they weren't overdone in this book, I loved how she sets the tone for the story and lets us imagine what the cabin looks like and everything. “Learned some things in my life, Duchess, one of the most important, you find a good woman, you take care of her.” “Please” “This happens between us, Duchess, I’d take care of you.” “Don’t” “Die doin’ it,” he vowed. The romance that builds between these two is so beautiful and their is some great emotional displayed in the story and we see how Max and Nina work through their pasts together and despite a couple of misunderstandings, they really handle this new relationship so well. There is some great intimacy growth in this story and I liked that their story is slowly built up, and they don't have sex until about the halfway mark which is great because I love great sexual tension built up and Kristen Ashley does that really well. I closed my eyes and my body settled.Without thinking my body knew it'd do anything,anything, for Holden Maxwell We have a delightful murder mystery that comes into play and I appreciated that it didn't overtake the story, it felt really well balanced with the romance between Max and Nina. We also have some delightful supporting characters that definitely add some humor and mischief to the story. I guarantee that they will give you some great laughs along the way. Overall I found The Gamble to be a truly beautifully told romance that gives us some edgy suspense, sizzling sparks of chemistry and depths of emotion to stun the reader!! OUTSTANDING!

This book was very hard to stomach at parts. The way Max would NOT let her move from his grasp at times just holding onto her when Nina was CLEARLY trying to get away.. left me feeling so icky. At times it could be cute and flirty. Most times it was so controlling and lets talk about NOT GIVING CONSENT. The other hard part was the dialogue. Oh my word the dialogue. Most times the conversation consisted of max telling Nina what to do and her answer just being "Max.." then he cuts her off with his odea/demand and her going "Max.." repeat "Max..". The tone of the "max" would start irritated and frustrated then would end on the 5th Max with a tone of submission. So strange. Such cheap writing. There ain't much depth to that style of dialogue. Some characters were enjoyable and quirky. Others were portrayed waaaaay to quirky. Nina's mom, no grown woman acts like that. No mother would act that way about her daughter. So painful to read. It started as a fun easy read with a fun romance story thrown in. By halfway through I was going "still????? We are still being forced to do everything we dont want to by Max???" I can't finish it. Left at 66% on my Kindle and I'm not going back.

3.5 I just wasn't feeling this as much as other Kristen Ashley's books.

DNF, would not recommend

3.5 stars. I really did enjoy it too much to only give it 3, but it wasn't exactly 4 for me. The reason I decided to read this book is because my name is Kristen Ashley, and after a few years of my brother texting me photos from the book sections at stores and saying "Should I buy your book? lol" curiosity got the better of me and even though I haven't been into contemporary romance in years, I decided to go for it. Cause it's only 600 and some pages long. Why not? First of all, I found this book to be adorable overall. I loved reading about Nina and Max, and Mindy and Nina's mom and stepdad and all of Max's friends, and best of all, I loved the cozy, small-town vibe and the descriptions of the outdoors and mountains. I enjoyed myself by three pages into the book, and even though I'm dead in the middle of a much-overdue Harry Potter reread, I found myself picking this up during any free moment I had. So Nina, an American girl living in England for several years, decides to take a time-out from her nice but overwhelmingly boring fiance and take a vacation to a tiny Colorado town. She paid a fortune to rent a secluded house in the mountains, but when she arrives, she discovers the owner is occupying the house and he has no intention of letting her stick around. Promising her a refund, he shoves her out the door and they have a... spat, for lack of a better word, on the way out. in a tizzy, Nina accidentally drives into a ditch, and her new friend finds her and takes her back to his place for the night. Where she becomes violently sick and he takes it upon himself to nurse her back to health. And the relationship progresses from there. Admittedly, these circumstances are not all that plausible. But the great thing about being a reader of romance is that I have a fantastic suspension of disbelief going into these things. Romances are essentially fantasies. Everything can slide into place with a few tangles here and there, because this book isn't meant to be a fast-paced adventure with dragons and wizards and evil overlords. It's a cute little story, and that's all it has to be. I have to put a disclaimer here. Normally with all of the grammar errors and annoying sentence structures, leaving me wondering if this author has ever taken a basic high school English class, I would have stopped reading this book early on. I continued reading, however, because Kristen Ashley has this fantastic way of carefully weaving characters to seem like real, tangible things. I found myself feeling for Max and Nina. I loved their little story (which clocking in at 205,000 some words really isn't little AT ALL). My love of the characters and the story, and my unbelievable obsession with romances and their inevitably cute and happy, feel-good endings, kept me reading through it all. Now some stuff I didn't like, besides the grammar errors and awkward sentences because I feel like that's probably a big problem with a lot of self-published authors who maybe can't afford great editors. 1. In the book, a girl says she got a shirt "for a song". I don't know what this means, but I figure it means something like dirt cheap, considering the context it was in. I thought it could be attributed to a saying from that area of Colorado, since everyone spoke with a cowboy-emphasis on their words. But then Nina's mother and stepfather from Arizona say the same phrase, and someone else does too but I can't remember who. This confused me, and I even started to find it a little annoying. 2. For someone starting a serious relationship with someone she doesn't really know, Nina didn't ask a lot of questions about things she found out, things that led to some dangerously rocky parts of her fledgling relationship. Things she seemed perfectly happy ignoring, but that I would have confronted Max about, and he would have been happier for it. 3. Speaking of Nina being annoying, every time something made her upset, she decided to leave. Every few pages she was like "That's it! As soon as I can, I'm going home/to a hotel/to a cabin." And after the third time I was like "Do it or don't, I'm sick of reading your whining." Then she was like "I'm moving here/I'm going back to England/I'm selling my house in England/I'm never talking to Max again" etc. Ugh. I hate main characters being such whiners. 4. It was SOOOO LOOOOOONG. Like this book could have been much shorter. Honestly, there is so much detail, which isn't necessarily horrible when it's about the mountains or character development. But did I need like, four pages going into detail about the house's decor, or the cabin's decor, or processes that had nothing to do with the story at all? No, not really. I skimmed quite a few pages and skipped full paragraphs and still didn't miss a word of the story. I don't know who decided length equals quality, but in this case, it didn't help. Despite liking this story a lot, I found myself wishing it would conclude quicker. And that is all I have to say about this book. I am reading another Kristen Ashley book, Rock Chick, so I did like her enough to continue with her work. It wasn't the most amazing reading experience, but it was enjoyable and sweet, and I'm so glad I read it.

Re read - love it as much as the first time. I loved Nina and Max, even with their flaws and issues. Even when they were being daft or doing something I did not agree with, it was obvious it was borne out of a sense of fear. Great cast of secondary characters (and as I thought the first time, Brody needs a story!) Great exciting plot with characters you care about. The writing gives a very real sense of what is happening, and how something is, so you have a very clear picture in your head. As usual with KA an awesome epilogue!