Thank you,thank you, thank you, Jodi! First, thanks for not making us wait a year for the second installment, thank you for the story and the wicked romance, thank you for mentioning David Kimmerle to help us appreciate how steaming hot Jesse is and thank you for filling my head and thoughts with such a captivating trilogy.
This books hits so many of my chocolicious buttons - romance, obsession, compulsions, volcanic emotions and sex, denial, angst, twists, turns and big reveals, the bitchy 'other woman' he totally ignores, a disturbed psyche that only her tender embrace can soothe... Jodi, you could have written this book just for me.
Story: If you haven't read This Man (TM) then DO THAT FIRST! Beneath This Man (BTM) continues from the cliff we were left hanging off (by the fingernails, I might add) and yes, you guessed it, Jesse and Ava do meet again. There will be enough reviews out there with spoilers so I shan't go down that route. What I will say is that several of things that were glanced upon in TM are revealed in their entirety (unless the final book tells us more) in BTM - such as Jesse's absence for those four days (!!!), his drinking and those damned pills! We also get up close and personal with the Manor. The things we loved about Jesse and Ava in TM are amped up by their words and behaviour in BTM.
The secondary characters are really great and I really liked the way small things, such as Ava's observation of Sally's attire, reveals more about Ava's character. That is real show and tell character development.
My only gripe is editing, mainly punctuation and grammar - 'hadn't of took' instead of 'hadn't taken'. Silly simple things, but for the sake of time (getting that book posted on Amazon by the deadline), I don't particularly care. The story overwhelms what, in other books, would have me gritting my teeth and ruining the experience.
Read it - just bloody read it! - if you are a fan of FSOG, BD and Crossfire; you won't be disappointed.