All I Want Is You (Coral Cove Book 1)

First, I liked the story and I recommend it. It starts off rather depressing, everything bad in the world has happened to this girl except maybe having someone shoot her dog. I was just about ready to shoot myself when she finally meets Jack. Thank goodness, a gorgeous hunk enters the story. She is trying to overcome some of the negative events in her life and not making a lot of headway. Her roommate talks her into trying to find a rich guy to marry. so she does. Not good for one's reputation to be known as a gold digger. And then there is Grandpa Charlie. He is in a rest home in Florida and his funds are running out, so add that to her problems and the need for money. She works at a shop in the mall so she is not about to get rich quick.After meeting Jack she decides to drive to Florida to see her Grandpa and Jack decides to come along to be sure she has a safe trip. Sparks fly but they are both keeping secrets and so there are problems. They get their HEA. So it ends well.SPOILER...just my thoughts so don't read if it is going to upset you. I liked the story right up until Jack tells her his 2 big secrets. I thought her response was totally unrealistic. If he had been in prison for murder I would have expected her to react that way. But his secrets were not even bad. Since she already knew about the cheating, the rest was just not that bad. I almost quit reading because I got so put out with her behavior. I don't know why Jack didn't put his house up for sale and move to Florida and leave her to get over herself. I really didn't like her at the end. It seems he had to do all the crawling because of her insecurities. She needed to grow up and get over herself.

***SPOILER ALERT***Rating: 2.5Let me start off by saying that I love Toni Blake and she is an automatic buy for me (normally). If you read the reviews I've made on her books they have generally been over the moon. With that being said, this book just didn't do it for me. It was well written and flowed somewhat easily (although I agree with other reviewers that there was too much internal dialogue), I just got the sense that maybe Toni Blake wasn't into this novel and she just finished it and moved on to something else.I wasn't captivated from the beginning and the initial premise was very disappointing (I was desperate for a new book and purchased this). Seriously who wants to read the age old tale of a young girl looking for rich man to fix all of her problems? I thought Toni Blake DIDN'T write about these kinds of topics since that market is oversaturated already. If I wanted to read this premise I would be looking for a book that has "billionaire" or "millionaire" in the title...The heroine Christy was likeable in other Toni Blake Destiny series books where she's mentioned but she's completely unlikeable here. She comes across as a self-absorbed, naive, whiny young woman who is clueless about the real world. I'm not sure if that is what comes with writing abotu a 24 year old but I don't like it. I think Ms. Blake intended Christy to come across as a "mature 24 yr old" due to her parents untimely passing but she just came across as immature.The BIGGEST problem with this book was the over top unrealistic scenarios (even for a contemporary romance). The readers are supposed to believe that a man who is a "handyman" and flipping houses is going to offer to drive a young woman to see her grandfather in Florida (from Ohio) when they've only spent less than2hours together (collectively over a period of 2 weeks) and know nothing about each other but the undeniable chemistry (**eye roll** because I couldn't feel the chemistry). That makes NO sense and even though I'm from a major city, I still find this sketchy and unrealistic. They were living in Cincinnati which is a large city and they didn't know each other. Why would she agree to have him drive her? He could have been dangerous and it was just crazy.This story isn't as easy flowing as other Toni Blake novels and I could not get into either character. In the end, they end up together and Christy never has a "real" job throughout the entire novel so I guess she got what she wanted which is a scenario where someone would take care of her. Nothing about this book made sense - just skip it altogether.SIDE NOTE: if you are a loyal Toni Blake reader you know she likes the Hero's to give the Heroine's nicknames and it's usually cute but its annoying that it is in EVERY single book.

4.5 starsI really enjoyed reading All I Want Is You, I loved the romance plot between Jack and Christy, they had great chemistry and I loved how Christy was honest with Jack from the first day she asked him to break her house' door but I did have a problem with Jack not being honest with her and keeping a lot of secrets for a very long time.I also enjoyed reading about all the secondary characters of Coral Cove, I loved reading about all the small business on the town and how friendly they were to Christy and Jack :Reece, the manager of the Happy Crab and his giant iguana, Fifi, Polly and Abner from The Hungry Fisherman, Fletcher McCloud the tightrope walker and other people of Coral Cove town that really added to the story and I just found myself LOL many times while reading.Most of all I loved reading about Christy's grandpa, Charlie and his secondary plot.It can't be a Toni Blake book without a cat in it LOL so we got to meet Dinah, a stray cat that Polly from the restaurant keeps feeding.I'm really looking forward to reading more about Coral Cove.

Another wonderful story by Toni Blake. This is an offshoot of the Destiny series. It takes a very minor character from that series and starts a new series in Coral Cove.I mostly loved the hero and heroine, Jack and Christy. Until Christy became a bit too stubborn and made me want to pull my hair out. Considering the circumstances under which she met Jack, she had no right to be so upset about events that happened. I will cede the point that she even somewhat acknowledged that she shouldn't be quite so upset, but that didn't mean she let him off the hook when she should have.As for the kooky cast of characters we met in Coral Cove, I just cannot wait to hear their stories. I can't help but hope Spencer gets his happily ever after as he so much believes he will.

As a series its okay