Blue Lines, By Toni Aleo

Opposites do more than just attract in Toni Aleo’s latest Nashville Assassins novel about a very bad boy and the good girl he can’t resist.

The instant Piper Allen sees Erik Titov, she wants him—wants his rock-hard body, sure, but the strength and mystery that lies behind that superstar hockey jock demeanor, too. So when he sidles up to her at a bar and slinks his arm around her waist, she’s lost. What follows is the wildest night of her life . . . followed by inevitable heartbreak the next morning. And then, a few weeks later, a very big surprise: two blue lines on a pregnancy test.

Only a check to the head could make Erik fall for a nice girl like Piper. But since their crazy-sexy night together, he’s been trying to forget about her alluring body by falling into bed with every woman in Nashville, and it’s not working. So when Piper shows up at his house with a baby-bomb to drop, it doesn’t take much for Erik to suggest the nuclear option: marriage. While it’s supposed to be all for show, the second they say “I do,” the ice between them starts to melt into sizzling steam.

Includes a special message from the editor, as well as excerpts from these Loveswept titles: Taking Shots, Trying to Score, and Empty Net.

I feel I must divulge that I have yet to read a Toni Aleo book that I don’t like, so you should know from the get go that there may be a bit of confirmatory bias in this review.  Just keeping it real, peeps…just keeping it real.

Blue Lines is Piper’s story.  We’ve all come to know and love Piper in the previous Assassins books, and I don’t know about you, but I’ve been waiting for this.  She is completely and utterly in love with Erik Titov, a hotshot hockey player for the Assassins, who scores as many women as he does goals.  They hook up one night and weeks later, Piper discovers that she’s pregnant. Will Erik man up and discover what a treasure Piper is, or will he let her slip through his fingers?

I have to get this off my chest. Erik is a major douchenozzle.  Like, the world’s biggest.  He has reasons for being the way he is, but as I was reading this I just kept thinking that if I met a man like him in real life, I’d kick him squarely in the family jewels.  Piper is so sweet and true, and Erik seems to use and abuse her.  I’m glad that Piper stands up for herself and doesn’t let Erik dictate what is going to happen, so I guess you can say that I really liked the characters in this book; and characterization is Toni’s strength.  You just seem to grow attached to each and every one of the characters in her books.  You root for them, you’re sad for them, you cry for them and you laugh with them.  This is the strength of her writing. 

Another think I really like is that her books tell a very complete story.  I’m never left wanting, or feeling the story is incomplete.  She always tells a complete story, and manages to work in characters from the previous books so you know what is going on with them.  It’s just good writing, peeps.  Not to mention, the heroes are all cut, not hockey players.  REALLY can’t go wrong with that. 

So, does Erik redeem himself and become someone resembling someone with feelings by the end?  You’ll just have to read and see.  4.5 stars!