Book Review: Seeking Her (Losing It #3.5) by Cora Carmack

Add to Goodreads

Seeking Her
Losing It Series #3.5
By:  Cora Carmack
Published: Jan. 28, 2014
By:  William Morrow Impulse
Source:  Publisher

GR's Summary:

A few months after being honorably discharged from the military, Jackson Hunt is still struggling to adjust back to the real world. He needs to get a job and find a sense of normalcy if he’s going to keep his own demons at bay. The job that falls into his lap, though, is anything but normal. 

Bodyguard (and baby-sitter) to spoiled-rich-girl Kelsey Summers isn’t exactly what he’d been looking for, but it’s a chance to travel, to get away from the home that has felt stifling ever since his return. It would be a pretty sweet gig if it weren’t for the fact that Kelsey’s father doesn’t want Kelsey to know she’s being followed. Hunt feels guilty (and a little bit creepy) as he watches her from afar. She’s vibrant and infuriating, exciting and reckless, mysterious and familiar. When he sees her falling into the same patterns that he suffered years ago, he decides it’s time to stop watching and help her instead. But getting to know her is more difficult than he thought, especially because the more he knows her, the more he wants her.

Finding It Series:

Review of Losing It Here

Review of Keeping Her Here

Review of Faking It Here

Review of Finding It Here

My Thoughts:

I have been a huge fan of the Losing It Series by Cora Carmack; snatching all of the books up and then devouring them as soon as they are on my Kindle.  I absolutely loved Jackson and Kelsey's story in Finding It, and was anxious for an encore.  To say I was excited by the revealing of Seeking Her, told exclusively from Jackson's point of view, is putting it mildly.  In Finding It, we got the whole story told from Kelsey's point of view after meeting Jackson and falling for him.  I couldn't wait to learn more about Jackson as a character, as well as hear his thoughts and observations regarding Kelsey.

For me, the pacing in Seeking Her, went really slow.  Since this is a novella, I thought I would breeze through it.  Instead, I found myself putting it down a lot.  I loved Jackson in Finding It, so naturally I enjoyed Seeking Her.  However, it felt more like a reread to me than a new story.  I loved seeing how Jackson felt protective of Kelsey right away.  He connected with her, because he saw his old self in her.  The one who drank excessively and went to great lengths to try and dull the emotional pain that he was in.  He was also really attracted to her and had to keep reminding himself that this was a job for him.  These thoughts and feelings took up two-thirds of the story, and it didn't seem to move that much till the last third, when Jackson stepped out of the shadows and started interacting with Kelsey.  

Then, the plot really started to pick up, and I was speeding through the story!  Finally, I was getting to the good stuff; the attraction, hot chemistry, and sweet romance between Jackson and Kelsey, the confiding of secrets, and getting to know each other on a deeper level.  Then, abruptly, the story ended.  I thought I was missing something, and kept flipping through my Kindle, but no, the story had officially ended.  My reaction was frustration and confusion.  Where was the rest of the story?

So, to sum up my overall thoughts, I love Jackson.  I enjoyed getting inside his head and learning more about his thoughts and observations concerning Kelsey.  We get a little bit of information about his past, but I would have liked to learn a lot more about his family background, past experiences, and what made him turn his life around.  The story was a bit redundant, and didn't bring a whole lot of "new" to this novella.  Things speeded up, and then ended abruptly.  I'm going to give Ms. Carmack the benefit of the doubt (since she is one of my favorite authors,) and guess that maybe this novella is a to be continued...  I give Seeking Her, by Cora Carmack, 3 Attraction, Chemistry, and Jackson-Filled Stars!

My Favorite Quotes:

"I thought of how it would feel to be with a girl like Kelsey, to have her comfortable enough with me that she didn't need the clothes and the makeup and the hair.  To have her be mine.  Somehow, I wanted this version of Kelsey even more, because she felt more real than every other version of her I'd seen so far."  (eARC, Loc. 984)

~Jackson Hunt

"War changes.  It's fought with different weapons, in different places, by different people.  But it never gets any less ugly."  (eARC, Loc. 1315)

~Jackson Hunt

Preorder:

(Only 0.99 right now!)

Amazon 

About Cora Carmack:

Cora Carmack is a twenty-something writer who likes to write about twenty-something characters. She's done a multitude of things in her life-- boring jobs (like working retail), Fun jobs (like working in a theatre), stressful jobs (like teaching), and dream jobs (like writing). She enjoys placing her characters in the most awkward situations possible, and then trying to help them get a boyfriend out of it. Awkward people need love, too. Her first book, LOSING IT, is a New York Times and USA Today bestseller.

Website | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter