Title: Mr. Real
Author: Carolyn Crane
Series; Code of Shadows #1
Publisher: Self
Number of Pages: E Book
Source: Author
Don't you just love the cover of this book???? It's perfect for the story line, and the model on the cover is so yummy! You know that saying of be careful what you wish for, it might come true? Well, Alix finds out the hard way what happens when you wish something into the reality. The consequences aren't at all what she thinks they would be.
What I love is that when I pick up a book by Carolyn Crane I never know what to expect. The plots are never typical, and leave you with so many twists and turns that as soon as you think you have everything figured out, you realize you don't.
When Alix Gordon inherits an old Victorian House from a Great Aunt she never knew, she immediately leaps at the chance to restore it and turn it into a bed and breakfast. However the house comes with a few things she didn't expect. When she finds an old floppy computer disk, she puts it in her laptop to see what's on it. All that appears are weird symbols that look like they are a part of a computer code. She doesn't think much about it. Then one night she sees a necklace she really wants, and downloads the image. She can't afford the necklace, but it doesn't stop her from clicking on the image a million times. The next morning, it appears out of nowhere. Slightly stunned, she calls the retailer to make sure that the necklace hasn't been stolen. It hasn't, but the image of the necklace is no longer on the jpeg. Alix decides to test the theory that maybe she somehow wished the necklace to her place, so she does it again with a few other items-all of which magically appear. She tells her best friend Karen what's happened, and Karen immediately freaks out and tells her not to click on any other images because who knows what she could mess up in the grand scheme of things?
Alix is a little upset that her friend doesn't trust her to do the right thing. She's the wild child of her family, and the one everyone expects to mess up, and can't believe the one person who she thought believed her lost faith in her. So, she sets out to prove everyone wrong and wants to show her friend Karen that she can pick an image and not have anything awful happen. She chooses an image of Sir Kendall, her favorite spy in the commercial for Denali beer. The actor, Paul Reinhardt just happens to be the martial arts instructor who she used to have a crush on, and who kicked her out of her class for being not serious about it. She's never quite forgiven him for that, but the crush still lingered a bit. Alix thinks the image of Sir Kendall, the Denali man would be a perfect test because he's not real. When he arrives, he's even better then she thought he would be. She expects to be romanced, and then have him vanish like the other items did.
Sir Kendall is as great as Alix thought he would be, and when the time comes to send him back, Alix stops him from leaving by stopping the chain of events that will send him back. I loved how the pov switched to Sir Kendall, and watching him trying to figure out what the heck was going on was great and there were a lot of hilarious misunderstandings between him and Alix. What Alix didn't count on though, was when she conjured up Sir Kendall was that Paul Reinhardt, would feel this immediate pull to go to the small town where she lived. Unbeknownst to Alix, Sir Kendall had become Paul's worst nightmare. He was now in the MFF, and hated those beer commercials with a passion. All someone had to do to knock him off balance was to mention the name Sir Kendall to him.
Once Paul shows up I immediately started liking the story so much more. I just had a hard time with Alix falling for Sir Kendall so fast. When Paul shows up, he like everyone else tries in vain to convince Alix to do the right thing and send Sir Kendall back to where he came from. Does Alix listen though? Nope. She feels responsible for Sir Kendall and thinks that sending him back would be like killing him, and she just can't do that. This is where I started having real problems with Alix. I thought she was being stubborn to the point of stupidness. I just wanted to shake her so badly. The only thing that really kept me reading was I loved the tension between her and Paul. Sometimes I get so fixated on a certain part of the story, that I just want more of it and want every other part of the story line to go away, and that's how it was with Paul and Alix. :)
While I had some other minor problems with the book (like when Pauls friend Tonio and Alix just start talking without being officially introduced by Paul, granted there was a short jump in the storyline, but this bugged me for some reason. I also felt like Tonio was just forgotten for a huge portion of the story) this was much more a romantic suspense book then what I normally read, and I have to say I'm impressed that it held my attention. I couldn't wait to see what trouble Alix would get herself into next.
I'm really interested into seeing where this series goes next! I love being surprised by books, and this one didn't let me down-there were a ton of twists and turns that I just loved.
