Smitten by Books

One night they can’t forget…

Tess McMann lives her life according to the secrets she’s sworn to keep: the father who won’t acknowledge her, the sister who doesn’t know she exists, and the mother who’s content playing mistress to a prominent businessman. When she meets the distractingly cute Dylan Kingsley at a prestigious summer program and falls in love, Tess allows herself to imagine a life beyond these secrets. But when summer ends, so does their relationship—Dylan heads off to Canton College while Tess enrolls at the state university.

One love they can’t ignore…

Two years later, a scholarship brings Tess to Canton and back into Dylan’s life. Their attraction is as strong as ever, but Dylan has a girlfriend…who also happens to be Tess’s legitimate half-sister. Tess refuses to follow in her mother’s footsteps, which leaves her only one choice: break the rules she’s always followed, or allow Dylan to slip away for a second time.

…And only one chance to get things right.

This is the first book in the Canton series.

What a wonderful find. 

I looked up to find Dylan Kingsley standing across the table from me. The glasses were gone, the hair was tamed, and whatever baby fat might have lingered on his eighteen-year-old features had disappeared entirely, leaving behind perfectly planed cheekbones and a sharp jawline. The slim teenage body I’d never quite managed to forget had matured too…

And so it begins. After two years, Tess is facing her one-time lover, Dyan, again. This time however, he has a girl-friend who just happens to be Tess’s half-sister Hannah Swift.

Oh the turmoil. Here’s the thing. Hannah doesn’t know who Tess is but Tess has always been aware of who Hannah is. Tess and her mother are her father’s dirty secret and Hannah is the legitimate, most-favored daughter.

Ugh. I have to say I didn’t like the father at all. Not even a bit. I hated him because I loved Tess and hated the life she was forced to live. I found it hard to admire much about her mother. That she would allow her “lover” to treat not just her but more importantly, their daughter that way. Her mother was weak and while I understand human frailties, the whole situation with him and me gritting my teeth.

On the other hand, boy did I love the main characters in One & Only. Tess is certainly a product of her circumstances but in her transferring to Canton, (something her father did not want and wouldn’t pay for because his ‘legitimate’ daughter, Hannah, would be there) she stood up to her father, thereby taking on the burden of the rest of her college education. This she feels immediately when she suffers the sticker shock of her $1534.71 textbook bill. She can’t afford that and so she ends of borrowing Dylan’s textbook for the classes they share.

They end up teaming up again to be partners in one of their various science classes. Be warned. This story is meaty on the topic of science. Not overwhelmingly so but it is the subject that brings and sort of ties Tess and Dylan together.

At first I thought Dylan would be all light-geeky and sunshine. I loved that there’s a deeper, more serious side to him. As with all romance heroes, when he loves, he loves deep. He does a great job of hiding his feelings when it came to Tess’s deflection two years ago, but scene-by-scene readers get to see how much it did hurt him. I won’t go into whether technically he cheats on Hannah or not. I will say that this story is not what I considered a love-triangle.

Tess is a great heroine. I loved the dilemma she found herself in, which was rife with juicy secrets and finger-biting conflict. Although Tess tells herself it’s different, she does see the way her current situation parallels her mother’s as she finds herself in the reluctant (but can’t seem to help herself) role of the other woman. I don’t think their lives paralleled all that much. The only thing that irked me about Tess was the way she ended things with Dylan at the science Camp at Cornell the summer after she graduated from high school. I definitely thought she took the coward’s way out given the reasons she decided it would be fruitless to pursue anything with him. But then again, at the time, she was just an eighteen-year-old kid.

I truly enjoyed the end. Of course I won’t give anything away but Viv Daniels didn’t end it the way I thought she would—which was a good thing. I would love to read more books in this series, although after looking on her website, I’m not sure she intends to go on with the series. 🙁

Reviewed by Bev
Heat Level: Mild/Sensual