Unwrapping: Review of CONCEAL, book three in the Barker Triplets series by Juliana Stone

I hope you followed my recommendations to read Juliana Stone’s Barker Triplet series because the last of the triplets’ story is now out there. In OFFSIDE, we met Billie Jo Barker and watched her win her hero, Logan Forest. In COLLIDE, Bobbie Jo Barker won over the heart and forgiveness of Shane Gallagher. *sigh* Well, get ready to discover what really makes Betty Jo Barker tick and discover how the man who can’t live without her, Beau Simon, melts her heart and saves her from herself in CONCEAL by Juliana Stone. 

***I bought this one for my own personal reading but am happy to share my thoughts with you. 

Blurb for CONCEAL:

 

No one said going home would be easy...

Black sheep and all around troublemaker, Betty Jo Barker is back home and hoping for a do-over. Things are finally looking up until Beau Simon comes to town. The man pushes every button she owns and manages to awaken long dead emotions she'd rather leave buried. Beneath the surface she knows she's a wreck--her scars run deep--and she can't help but wonder, is Beau Simon the one who can fix her?

Beau Simon, the brightest star in Hollywood has come to New Waterford for one reason only. He's determined to have Betty Jo Barker star in his next film. He knows she's perfect for the part, but a past encounter might prove more than a little difficult to overcome. As Beau turns on the charm, hoping to win over this complicated woman, he realizes it won't be easy.

Only time will tell if what lies beneath can ever be overcome. Or if love can heal all...

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Betty Jo Barker returned to New Waterford, Michigan with her tail between her legs, but was unwilling to discuss it with anyone except maybe her only friend, Matt Hawkins. She’s traveled the world, made videos, and was once a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Cover Model, but the degradation she felt at the hands of one man has sent her home to hide and hope for a chance to start over. She’s given up the pills and the booze but the anger, the self-deprecation, and a long buried problem with her sister, Billie, keeps her from feeling any true happiness. Now, as if her life couldn’t get any worse, Beau Simon, the man who did his best to destroy her Hollywood career, has come to town and won’t leave her be until he tells her why. 

Beau Simon, tall, gorgeous, and movie star handsome with his long blond hair and beautiful blue eyes turns the heads of every woman in New Waterford, including a few whose hormones should’ve worn out some time ago. He turns all heads except the one he wants - Betty’s. He knows what he did when he seduced her to prove to everyone in show business that she was a no talent seductress who would spread her legs for anyone who could possibly further her career. He knows he was wrong about Betty Jo Barker. He knows she is talented and to prove it, he wants her and only her to play the role he wrote with her in mind. He wants her to star in his movie and won’t quit until he convinces her to do so.  

When Beau accidentally overhears a private conversation between Betty and her sisters, he sees a whole new side to this tough, stubborn woman who does her best to never let her guard down. He discovers the vulnerable Betty Barker and wants to know her better. He wants to be there for the incredible woman who begins to claim his heart. 

When reading romance, we are used to meeting tortured heroes with pasts, memories, and deeds that haunt them and turn their hearts cold until the right woman comes along to save them. Well, in CONCEAL by Juliana Stone, it’s not a tortured hero that brings our emotions to a crest, and tugs at our heartstrings, making us wish we could do something to ease the pain. No, in this final book of the Barker Triplets trilogy, it’s a tortured, haunted, and severely damaged young woman by the name of Betty Jo Barker. She carries the memory of a night that keeps her from opening her heart, and her soul, to real happiness, real love, and even the love of her family. 

Even before reading CONCEAL, I suspected that Betty carried some deep buried burden but it didn’t lessen the pain I felt for this young woman when I learned what it was. No spoilers here. You’ll have to read CONCEAL for yourself to learn what happens and how Beau wins her over.  

CONCEAL by Juliana Stone is an emotional and somewhat darker addition to the Barker Triplet series, but I wouldn’t want it any other way since this is Betty’s story. Juliana lightens the darkness by introducing us to some new characters that will surely pique your interest as they have mine. I was very happy to learn that the Simon brothers will be revisited in Juliana’s next series, The Family Simon series with Tucker Simon’s story coming this Fall. WooHoo! You are going to love Tucker Simon. I already do.

Whereas, I can’t say that CONCEAL by Juliana Stone is my favorite of the Barker Triplet series - COLLIDE featuring the sexy and unforgettable Shane Gallagher is still my most favorite - but I can say that I have no regrets regarding this one. I knew that Betty was harsh, angry, and unhappy but her story is no less poignant than her sisters’ stories. All three girls had something from their past they each kept hidden, that continued to haunt them, and that eventually is revealed. Betty’s secret is the most damaging, the most hurtful, and the most painful, yet she has the strength to finally reveal it to the two people she knew it would hurt the most. Together these resilient and loving sisters come together and help each other heal. That’s what makes the Barker Triplets series so special and why CONCEAL by Juliana Stone might just be her most incredible and most heartrending of the trilogy. 

I highly recommend CONCEAL by Juliana Stone to anyone who has ever known heartache, a friend in need, and understands the real healing power of love and compassion. If you’ve read the first three, reading the third is an absolute must to truly understand the Barker Triplets and their men. If you haven’t read this incredible series yet, I can only ask you this – why not?  

Happy Reading Everyone! 

CONCEAL, a Barker Triplets novel by Juliana Stone, self-publish, available now in ebook formats everywhere.  ***Click on cover below for Amazon purchasing information.
 

                                                                                                                          

Unwrapping: Review of COLLIDE, a Barker Triplets novel by Juliana Stone

I hope some of you read Juliana Stone's first book in her self-published The Barker Triplets series, OFFSIDE, because it was fabulous. Well, even though she offered me an ARC of her second book, COLLIDE, and newest release in the series, I declined because of my reading schedule but purchased it as soon as it came available. In the end, I couldn't resist slipping it into my reading schedule. Couldn't resist because having met Shane in OFFSIDE, I couldn't wait to experience this hero in his own second chance story with one of the Barker Triplets. I was not disappointed, in fact, I am even more in love with this sexy hunk of man!

***Copy purchased for my own personal reading but more than willing to share my honest and unscripted opinion with the world.

Blurb for COLLIDE:

A second chance never looked so good…

Bobbi-Jo Barker has been in love with the wrong man for years. A man who doesn't fit into the perfect, controlled life she's created.A man who not only broke her heart but nearly destroyed her. So the fact that he's back in town shouldn't matter because he's all wrong for her, or so she thinks...

Shane Gallagher, prodigal son, ex-con, and all around hellion, has returned to the small town of New Waterford to mend fences and get his life back. What he doesn’t count on are the feelings he still has for the one woman who can break him—the one woman who is totally wrong for him.

And yet, as Bobbi and Shane are thrown together and begin to navigate a life with each other in it, neither can deny the attraction they feel, or the emotions that come with it—the good and the bad. And so the question becomes… can these two damaged souls survive a second chance at love?

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Shane Gallagher came home from a stint in prison to New Waterford, MI four months ago. Since then, he's tried his best to keep his distance from Bobbi-Jo Barker since she's getting married on St. Valentine's Day. To try to keep his thoughts off the woman he can't seem to clear from his brain, Shane has traveled to the next town and settled into the one place that, although filled with memories best forgotten, is the last place he expects to run into the woman who still holds his heart. The very last thing he expects to see is Bobbi come storming into the dingy bar, dressed in her wedding gown  - on her wedding day - and order up tequila. Tequila has always put the t in trouble when it comes to Bobbi-Jo Barker.

Bobbi's gut is telling her that marrying Gerald Dooley is a bad idea - a very bad idea. Upon arriving at the church, she just can't bring herself to go in and asks Gramps to keep on driving. When she goes, to the one place no one would find her, to drink away her guilt, her misgivings, her fear and her heartbreak - heartbreak not over Gerald but over the one man who still drives her crazy sexy with a look or a word - does she expect to find him there. After nearly getting herself into a situation that could've gone very bad, she allows Shane to rescue her from the bar. But instead of taking her home to face the family, and Gerald, in a drunken, distraught state, Shane takes her to his place. The next morning, Bobbi wakes with a screaming hangover, in a bed she doesn't recognize, with a dog bouncing around her, wearing nothing but a man's tee shirt and her black panties. (I'm still amazed that she was wearing black panties under a white wedding gown but whatever goes, I say.)

Shane can't get Bobbi out of his mind, even as he tries and tries. He's got too many things on his mind to be thinking about her but he just can't seem to let her go, especially since she spent the night in his bed without him touching her. Not that she hadn't made a good try at seducing him but she was drunk and surprising himself, he was a gentleman. At first, Bobbi is concerned that something did happen between them but then after finding out that nothing did, she wants him all the more. It's Bobbi who makes the first move but it's Shane who takes control -  only to lose it again when after a passionate night of amazing sex, he wakes to find her gone.

Now, his need for Bobbi Barker is full blown. He knows he should stay away from her. He knows being with her will only cause trouble, and right now, his family is more than enough trouble for him. But Bobbi is like the sweet nectar that draws bees and he just can't stay away. So, Shane proposes a solution to their mutual problem - sex with no strings - sex just for sex sake - a totally sexual relationship with no emotions involved. Another night of rousing, passion-filled incredible sex that only he and Bobbi can create, an unexpected emotional admission while in the throes of passion by Bobbi, and Shane is rethinking everything. But there are secrets, there are misgivings, and there are regrets. Regrets from the past, fear of regretting the future, and a secret that torments Bobbi almost to the point of losing Shane once more. But this time, Shane decides he's no longer a quitter.

Let me just say this - Shane Gallagher is THE bad boy, he's everything that our common sense tells us to run from as fast and as far as possible, but I am totally in love with this man. If he were real, I'd trade in my husband for him. Good thing he's only imaginary, huh? Normally, when this happens I tend to get a bit jealous of the heroine who gets to enjoy a man like this but I know that if Bobbi Barker were real, she and I would be great friends. I think it's one reason I fell so hard for Shane - it was so very easy for me to step into Bobbi's shoes. I know this lady.

COLLIDE by Juliana Stone is wonderful, enticing, passionate, emotional and such an excellent continuation of the first book, OFFSIDE, that instead of feeling like months since I read the first one, it feels more like it never ended but that I merely turned the page. We revisit with Logan and Billie, we experience Betty a bit more and begin to feel some emotional sympathy for the third triplet. But, in the same way that Bobbi was not very likable in OFFSIDE, with her bitchiness towards Billie, we find ourselves feeling the same way about Betty.

Juliana Stone is incredible in the way she can take a simple second-chance love story and draw us in to the mixed up world of the Barker Triplets and we actually enjoy being there. Normally, a simple relationship-based contemporary story would not have me clamoring to snatch it to read as soon as it's published but I've been eager to read this one ever since reading OFFSIDE and now I'm looking forward to book three just as eagerly. Whether she can write another hero to put Shane in a corner, we will have to wait and see - somehow, I suspect Juliana will be able to do it. Juliana never seems to disappoint - the heroine or us. I've read nearly everything that Juliana Stone has written and have to say that her writing simply keeps getting better. To produce such incredible characters on her own without the guidance of a publisher's editors, is impressive and inspiring. I did catch a few places where her editing suffered - missing words - but perhaps she needs better beta readers. Volunteering for the job, if she needs me. 

I highly recommend COLLIDE by Juliana Stone to anyone who loves to read a passionate, emotional, and spark-filled second chance love story. If you haven't read OFFSIDE, don't worry, you can always go back later but I do recommend these be read in order just because the experience is so incredible, so amazing, and so swoon-worthy. Whoever knew that imagining a man sanding a table could be so dreamy! I did not want this book to end. I wanted to keep on living with Bobbi and Shane.

Happy Reading Everyone!

COLLIDE, a Barker Triplets novel by Juliana Stone, self-published, available in ebook formats anywhere ebooks are sold including Smashwords.