Full Package by Lauren Blakely

  A Review by Wendy

4.5 Lyle, Lyle Crocodile Stars
**** 1/2  

Spoiler Free

This is the first sentence of the blurb: "I’ve been told I have quite a gift". Well, I am adjusting it to say Lauren Blakely has quite a gift...She takes Double Entendres to a whole other level with all of her stand alone yet friend connected books. Blakely takes people who are out there living their lives, puts them in realistic situations and elevates them to a romantic intensity we all gobble up as soon as they are published.

In Full Package, she takes two best friends...people who have been there for each other; people who have shared fun times, secret embarrassments and a love of scrabble to death defying levels. These two break the mold of Men and Women Can't be Friends... for they have been, forever. They are now back in the same city having a housing issue...

Chase Summers is back from working with Doctors Without Borders. He gave up the lease he had and now is now back as an ER doc at one of the hospitals in NYC. He has tried to get a place but every time it looks like he has closed the deal... something happens to blow it. Chase is frustrated and really does not want to bunk with his brother Max.

Josie Hammer has been dealing with her own housing complications. She is thrilled her friend Natalie and her brother Wyatt are together, married and happy as all get out...only hiccup, Natalie was her roommate. Now Josie is juggling the loan for her up and coming Bakery's expansion and her full rent. She placed an ad for a woman roommate but none of them meet her questionnaire answers...They have all been too demanding, restrictive or just plain weird.

These BFF's are having one of their usual tastings... Josie concocts some new and wonderful treat using all sorts of yummy ingredients and Chase gives her his honest opinion. They have been doing this since they met years ago. Both of them just took to each other... No Chase hitting on Josie...and it totally worked. They would talk about his days... the stories from his medical practice... all the crazy things he had to deal with...and also some of the harder ones...She would talk about cooking, friends, movies or tv shows... Just about everything...

They were tight.
They were real with each other...
Their friendship was important...
In fact, it was the most important thing for both of them.

So when both of them were together shooting the sh!t, it came out that Chase once again missed leasing another place and was about to be homeless. It struck Josie that she was still in a pickle trying to find a roommate to fix her financial bind...

Both looked at each other and came to the same conclusion that they could be the answer each needed...
But both were also scared... because they did not want ANYTHING to harm their special friendship.

That was Key.

Well, Chase reassured Josie not to worry because he was the King of Compartmentalization. He had to do it everyday in his work... He couldn't let emotional feelings trigger his concerns about patients while on the table or after they left his care... He had to move forward to the next one.

Josie was convinced Chase would be the one to make sure both of them stayed the course... because she would never let him know, she had been interested in him, for like...forever. Nope... she would keep that to herself....

(Or maybe share that with us in her unique style...
Just sayin'...
Keep your eyes open...)

These two embark on cohabitating in a small 600 sq. foot apartment with one bathroom and two tiny bedrooms. Chase's bedroom is separated by a wall of thin Sheetrock... and as time goes by... it starts to become harder and harder to keep all the mental compartments separate.

This story has such sweet, funny, sexy and endearing moments...These two people were so perfect for each other... but both had been slayed by past experiences ...hurt in such a way as to be fearful of admitting they were crazy for each other...there was too much at stake...because their friendship was too valuable...

What I adored the banter; the way they played with each other. Chase was quick and Josie was his equal. Josie also surprised the hell out of Chase with her ability to own what she wanted out of life; from a relationship, from a man and sexually.

Yes, let's get to the sexually... because this was were we were able to fully embrace two adults who understood each other... they were open and free from the get go...Each owned every kiss, stroke, caress, lick and thrust...The way Blakely set up these specific situations was so perfectly played... They could have been scenes out of a top grossing Rom/Com...and maybe they should be.

As with all of these stand alone yet related books, we get little tastes of past characters we have grown to care about. People are pairing up and new ones have been incorporated...Chase's brother Max is next and I think it should be a humdinger..There are others, floating out in the Crafty Mind of Blakely and we shall just have to see what she has planned. Either way, I will be ready...
 
A gifted copy was provided by author/publisher for an honest review.

About Lauren Blakely

Since self-publishing her debut romance novel CAUGHT UP IN US over three years ago, Lauren Blakely has sold more than 1.5 million books. She is known for her sexy contemporary romance style that's full of heat, heart and humor. A devout fan of cake and canines, Lauren has plotted entire novels while walking her four-legged friends. She lives in California with her family. With twelve New York Times bestsellers, her titles have appeared on the New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal Bestseller Lists more than seventy times. Her bestselling series include Sinful Nights, Seductive Nights, No Regrets, Caught Up in Love, and Fighting Fire as well as standalone hit romances like BIG ROCK, MISTER O, WELL HUNG, and THE SEXY ONE which were all instant New York Times Bestsellers.