Mr. Garcia (Mr. Series)

I cannot believe that we are finally getting Sebastian’s story!! I feel like I’ve been waiting forever for it. In the previous books, I always got the impression that Sebastian was sweeter, but he was the polar opposite of sweet in this book. I still loved him though-as damaged and cold as he was. I also absolutely adored April. She was beautiful, funny and fierce. She was vulnerable but still had amazing confidence. I loved how she wasn’t afraid to put herself “out there” and take risks. But she also stood up for herself and didn’t take any of Sebastian’s crap.

T.L. Swan has a true gift for writing chemistry between her characters. From the minute these two laid eyes on each other, you knew they were meant to be together. Every interaction was crackling with tension. (The rest of this review will contain spoilers)......

These two go through such a roller coaster especially in the beginning of their relationship. As much as Sebastian wants April, there were so many times where he’s so cold to her and and constantly giving her mixed signals. So many times my heart broke for her and I wanted to cry for her but she handled things so well in my opinion. There’s a horrid misunderstanding and of course Sebastian handles it in the worst way possible and destroys their relationship just when things were truly good between them. It was gut wrenching. April is so devastated and heartbroken that she leaves town and starts over somewhere else.

Fast forward 6 years. Sebastian has entered politics and April has become a lawyer. They run into each other unexpectedly. They both hate each other but it’s obvious that they also never got over each other. April ends up having to work for him. Of course Sebastian can’t stay away from her but she wants nothing to do with him because he shattered her before and threw her away. Sebastian realizes that he was wrong all those years ago. He pursues her relentlessly. After putting up quite a fight, April gives in because she’s never felt for anyone what she feels for him.

Their relationship is very up and down again because Sebastian has deep seeded issues. Every time they get close, he pushes her away and I really wanted to kill him sometimes. Even when he would push her away, he could never stay away. April stood up for herself and handled him so well, but she also understood him like no other. Somehow, she always knew what he needed —even though at times Sebastian seemed like a truly toxic person.

These two still go through a lot. There’s a lot of happiness but Sebastian’s devious ex-wife causes a lot of drama. I will say— I LOVED the way April handled everything. My gosh she was brilliant. Sebastian should thank his lucky stars that he had her.

Loved the ending. Loved getting a glimpse and some of her other characters (Jameson and Tristen)lol. I especially loved the epilogue. It was an awesome way to close out this series!

This series is based on the romantic journeys of three close friends. I rank Mr. Masters the best, then comes Mr. Garcia and then Mr. Spenser. This second-chance romance was darker as Sebastian had a penchant for rough sex and both were betrayed by their former spouses. April was a strong woman who tolerated a lot of mixed messaging and betrayal from the grumpy Sebastian. She was the one who straightened him out so that they could pursue a relationship. There was mystery and slight suspense too.

4 1/2 stars Mr Garcia is quality writing as we’ve come to expect from this author, however, this alpha male might challenge you as he is a very different character!

April, for me, is the star of this story but I think that was intentional on the author’s behalf and a very clever ploy-name the book after the male lead character while the female lead character’s role becomes incredibly vital. April is no fluffy, airhead; she is strong, determined, intelligent and loving. She also has a wicked sense of humour, her banter is fun although can be a touch sarcastic when warranted. To me, April is, at times, just like a modern day superwoman! I absolutely loved her and thought she was the perfect partner for Sebastian.

Ah… Sebastian Garcia! He is an arrogant, domineering, moody douche, quite often actually. However, he is also a caring, supportive, determined, intelligent man too who is an excellent friend and who loves his family deeply. The huge issue or problem with Seb—well that’s a part of the overall story, so I won’t be revealing any more to ruin it for anyone. He is extremely passionate and as April calls him (in a fond manner) “A sex manic” but what she means is they both enjoy a very healthy physical relationship. The sparks do more than fly when they are together, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had the local fire department on speed dial!

There is so much that happens in this story that there really isn’t a dull moment. This book has it all:-romance and passion to suit everyone, great characters, fantastic humour, intriguing problems/issues and of course interesting solutions as well as a touch of suspense. Every emotion possible is packed into this book and quite often I found myself laughing out loud or gripping my kindle in anticipation or anger. I even found myself talking to the characters occasionally, hmmm-another sign of how much the story sucks you in and become a participant. The main reason for the extra half a star too.

Special mention must go to a character who stole my heart and that’s Jeremy who is absolutely gorgeous! I defy anybody who reads this story not to love this beautiful character. It was also great catching up with Julian, Spencer and their wives, Brielle and Charlotte.

Not what I expected. I didn’t mind the dominance and the plot was well thought out. However, the characters, regardless of their issues with breakups and trust were very immature in many reactions. It was a little unbelievable that someone as well connected and established personally, business wise and politically would behave in some of the scenarios. Also April being so smart and yet so stupid. The characters flip flopped so fast it was dizzying at times. I don’t know if it warranted more book or less. Either way, I did love the plot and the writing most of the book was full of what I want, steamy sex, angst and well thought out drama.

I was undecided on whether to rate this two or three stars because even though I've enjoyed a book or two by this author in the past, I found the plot to this book a bit of a hot mess and started nicknaming the story line 'Coincidence Central' in my head. I ended up settling on three stars because even though there were quite a few obvious typos and the like, the writing kept me entertained while I was rolling my eyes so far back in my head that I had 180 degree vision. Just a heads up - one of the factors that lessened my enjoyment of this book was how elements of the plot played out, with a fair bit of cheese factor thrown in one chunk after the other. As a result, spoilers will be below along with a possibly tedious run down of the main events of the first quarter of the book. So in other words, if you're one of those equally tedious readers that come to the reviews just to say 'I HaTe it WhEn a ReViEw SaYs EveRyThinG ThAt HapPenZzz', jog on - you've been warned. And why read reviews? And I'm not having a go at the author before super fans put their cape on; just expressing why I had a few problems with the story due to my personal preferences.

• Small spoilers for the first bit of the book below *

Okay, so the book is written in first person with chapters from both Sebastian and April's point of view. The former's chapters are written entirely in bold font so if this is going to make you twitch, here's your heads up. April works at a cafe that Sebastian drops in on one morning (quick note - she's 25 and he's mid to late 30s I think). As one of the staff members has left her in the lurch, she's left making the coffee, something she has no idea of how to do. She sees him bin her coffee, but then he returns the next day and then the one after that, throwing out her coffee outside the shop each day. Amongst this happening, the cheese factor is ramped up to maximum levels as she asks him if he's going to get a coffee for his girlfriend or maybe his wife. Probably just easier to hit him with a club and drag him to the back of the shop by his hair if you're going to be that awkward and obvious, but you do you, boo. She takes great pleasure then in making the worst coffee she can for him each morning. Look, my approach to get the attention of a guy might be a bit backwards, but I probably wouldn't go out of my way to show him I'm incompetent and think it's cute, not to mention waste his money. I can hear my grandma cursing 'She wouldn't do that if she'd lived through the Depression!'

On top of this, April has left a marriage in the States that left her broken-hearted after catching her now ex playing hide the salami with a colleague in their bed. She gets a scholarship to study law in London but is short of funds as she leaves with only the clothes on her back and he won't move out of the house for her to sell it and get money. She desperately wants to move out of the college dorms as the neighbouring room houses a girl who apparently is trying to set some kind of record for noise and nooky. Why didn't April complain? Well she did, but this neighbour is sleeping not only with the floor supervisor, but all four or so security guards. Huh. Seems plausible, almost as much as an apparently intelligent woman taking no other action to rectify the situation. Luckily, April is called in five or so weeks early for an interview with Club Exotic, a highly exclusive gentlemen's club where she's hoping to score a bartending gig.

This is where the series of ridiculous events continues. She's called in early for the interview. During said interview, the manager says she thinks she has another role for April and informs her that some members pay a premium to go to the Escape Lounge. What's that I hear you ask? Well every night at the lounge, there's a fashion parade with twenty-four of the club's most beautiful women. Every night, the same number of men reserve a spot to watch the parade and at the end, there's a private cocktail party. Then each of the girls pick a partner that they'll spend the night with. There's a five star hotel above the club that Escape own a floor on, but... wait for it... they don't have to sleep with the men. So to clarify, these men pay an exorbitant amount in yearly membership, get a private audience with girls but they don't get to choose one, the girl chooses them (but they can bid) and then on top of that, they might not even get intimate relations? I mean, creative license is one thing but this is borderline hilarious. Oh, and let's not forget, all of the twenty-four men are either gorgeous or have the 'it' factor. Well, naturally LOLOLOL and how lucky for all the women. Oh my goodness. And she's paid 5000 pound a night...to not do anything if that's her choice. Riiiiiiiight. But most of them do. Riiiiiiight again. I was laughing out loud by this point, by the way. Add to that, April's silly inner monologue and questions that made her sound like she'd taken a hit to the head. No, no, no.

Oh, but the fantasy continues. The girls get any laser and beauty treatments they want for free as well as professional hair and make up done. April decides she'll do four shifts and then quit. On her first night, she's presented to the men as the newbie where 'a whisper of awe falls over the room...' A whisper of awe fell over my lounge room, too, as I asked myself if this could get more ridiculous. Spoiler alert: it does. She looks up and sees Mr Garcia who's now a massive cranky pants because the first girl he's been really into since his horrid ex-wife cheated on him and scarred him for life is a call girl. Hold up - I thought they didn't have to sleep with the men? Hmmm, the somewhat dubious plot thickens. Well, since she's working as a word starting with 'w' and rhymes with 'core' (the choice of word in the book - definitely not mine), Sebastian Garcia certainly treats her like one and calls her one - several times throughout the book, actually. And while 'Get down on your knees and suck my you-know-what, you dirty 'w' word will certainly have some readers one-clicking (and to be fair, it was pretty hot in parts), it sounded strange for him to go from whoa to go with this language and if April had half a brain, it would be a massive red flag. Like, size of the Taj Mahal big. To be honest, it just sounded pretty gross. April then referring to herself as a dirty 'w' was also a bit of a step too far. Sorry to get on my soap box because I know it's fiction but surely we've moved on from women from all walks of life working in the sex industry as being referred to with derogatory terms? No? Righto. To quote April, 'I let poverty take my morals'. Sorry, Aps, but you sound like a dead set holier than thou snob. And this is all because she did two shifts at Escape where she slept with the exact same guy. Start praying to jeebus, girlfriend, you're clearly the baddest of the bad. Just an amusing aside, my note beside the quote above was 'Jesus eff'. Yep, funny again.

Okay, next plot reveal before I back off from the play by play. After Garcia hate bangs her a bit they fall into a happier place with each other. That is until she goes to a mansion with one of her close friends from university. They turn up at the house, said guy who's hardly been in the book kisses her and tells her he loves her completely out of the blue as the door opens. Guess who's there? I wonder??? Garcia, who hears his son (not actually his kid, but for some weird reason that made it to the final draft is actually his sister's kid who he stepped in for to help so calls him dad) say this and kiss her. He goes into a rage, calls her nasty names again and throws her out of the house as he thinks she's also been seeing his son so she must really be some kind of horrid, manipulative call girl. The son tells a friend what happened and they tell everyone she's an escort, embarrassing her and ruining her reputation. She transfers to another university and the book fast forwards six years to where she's working in the best ever law firm in the country and dating a pro soccer player who she likes as a friend but no more than that even though he's loaded and the bees knees. Le sigh.

While I'm bringing up the jump in time, there's also very little indication in the book to show section breaks which really affected the fluency of the story because the reader has to stop and figure out where the writing has just gone. So, in the next installment of April's crazy-lucky coincidences, she's given a coveted role in shadowing a new partner the firm's brought on who just happens to be the best lawyer for all the famous people. So guess who one of her clients is? The charming Mr Garcia, who we find out can only get aroused by call girls and rough nooky, is now deputy Prime Minister. Don't bother going back - you read that correctly.

So, this is all up to the 25% mark so while I've spilled my lollies on what seems like big plot reveals, this acid trip happened one thing after another in just the first section. The rest of the book is basically April desperately wanting him and then determining she wants nothing else to do with him with the occasional burst of jealousy and mini tantrums from her because she'd sever things somewhat and then get cranky and affronted that he didn't chase her or fall at her feet. I kid you not, this was rinsed, washed and repeated. She did grow a bit more a backbone after she moved but honestly, with her constant need to love the handsome, damaged guy that kind of got lost. There's a couple of nefarious plots to bring April and/or Sebastian down, lots of arguments and him being a bit of a jerk while she pined over him. A couple of crazy coincidences continue to happen but after the semi-rant above, I'm tired now and will leave whoever dives into the book with the pleasure of discovering them and possibly rolling their eyes themselves. One thing I will mention is that for one single scene, he had a room with nooky toys and whatnot. This came out of the blue and then just disappeared. Random and cliché.

On top of some of the formatting and grammatical errors, I'll also point out that several phrases and plot points were repeated. There were tonnes of fake smiles, rolled lips, eyes locking on one another and lip biting. With that and the plot basically repeating itself, I got a lot of deja vu. Sebastian would also do the arrogant, mean guy thing and ignore her or treat her bad and then they'd reconcile until his or her next tanty. Queue my note at only 52%: Groundhog Day. Lots of I don't want him near me but he should be chasing me. Him being a sex maniac was pretty repetitive, too (I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing lol). The epilogue was a nice touch and the book was a decent length.

While the direction the plot took was sometimes cheesy, ridiculous and jammed to the hilt with unrealistic coincidences for me, the dirty talk was on point and the smexy times were pretty hot. Sebastian was definitely dominant, jealous and possessive. I found both of the main characters had their faults so while I didn't hate the book, it was predictable and didn't leave me raving like a lot of other readers seem to be. I'm going to guess quite a few of these also loved Fifty Shades. Just so I'm clear, that's not a compliment. To finish on a positive note, I love the cover :)