'Watch your mouths and dress only in lace, your Lord of the Manor is back and he's trampling his way to the top. Jodi Ellen Malpas shining at her best and brightest with Jesse and Ava' - The British Bibliophile
Thank you to Valentine PR for sending me an ebook Advanced Readers Copy for me to read and leave an honest review.
With This Woman (This Man - The Story from Jesse) by Jodi Ellen Malpas is the second book in the much-beloved Jesse POV series, based on the original This Man series. Eleven years after the first publication of This Man our love for the Lord and his Lady is still as strong as ever, and this read only fuels our love for these two even more as we once more get back into their whiplash world.
The reception to the introduction to Jesse's POV with This Woman was unlike anything I have ever seen as a reader. Full-length novels in his POV were more than highly-requested and after getting to know him up close and personal more than ever we've read before for a second time, delving deeper into his psyche and int the complexity that is his heart and soul, I feel we'll all be deeper in love with this rampaging bull of a man than we've ever been before. Not that we had a choice, he was going to always make us his one way or another. We wouldn't want it any other way.
Jesse Ward has now been in our lives for the last eleven years, and although personally I was late in actually diving into the world of The Lord and his Lady, it's been simply impossible to turn back and go into another book without them crossing my mind at least once. Jodi has the knack of writing characters that go beyond leaving a long-lasting impression, they're with you somewhere in the back--or front--of your mind permanently. Jesse's POV books have only heightened that sense of prominence they'll forever have in both my mind and in my heart forever.
Book one, This Woman , answered my prayers when it came to delivering a read that swept us right back to Central Jesse Cloud Nine, and this book kept those prayers going. Although we already know where the story is headed thanks to the original series, Jodi has written it so that with the new POV we're seeing it through, we somehow still don't see things coming and feel everything in its raw intensity all over again as if it were the first time. There are very few authors, books and characters that can actually elicit that response out of a reader, and I'm proud to say that Jodi and the worlds with the characters she creates in them, does that every single time.
With This Woman showed that just when you think you're at your most awed, impressed and blown away, you can go even further. Be those things even more and times to the max. Where by this series is not the only definitive thing that defines Jodi as an author, and certainly isn't the most prominent you associate with her, it proves that no matter how far you go or how much you do, home is where the heart is. This is what this book and the series its in feels like. It feels like coming home. This series is home . This book is far from the 'saggy' middle section of Jesse's POV series, it instead gives us all we know and love about this chapter--pun intended--of their story and oh so much more. Jesse and Ava are just 'more', in every sense of the word. More indeed does happen to them in this book, to even describe it in the most simplest of terms. This is Jodi's girthiest book to date and that's evident from just how much was packed into the storyline. But then again, Jesse has always been about the girth, hasn't he? Stretching us to our limits and leaving us fully satisfied.
I said in my review in the November of last year for This Woman , that both Ava and Jesse had become fast-favourites of mine and that thanks to that book, I'd fallen in love with them all over again. A year on? That is still if not even more true. When we finish a book, that's not the end of our time with it before we find something else and move on. After finishing This Woman for the first time, I went back to it between reading other books and fed myself tidbits of Jesse and Ava to tide me over until the second instalment that is With This Woman . This includes the highly-recommended (by myself) audiobook accompaniment of This Woman read by the one and only narrator on this planet that embodies everything in his voice that can be the one and only person to be this character, Mr Shane East. There is no praise on this planet big enough to say how much justice he has done with Jodi's words, and I am very much looking forward to tomorrow when I can begin the audio adventure with him all over again with With This Woman's audio adaptation.
One of the great things about fictional romance books--especially the edgy, romantic kind--is that half of what goes into them we definitely wouldn't like and/or deal with in the real world. We say it about men and their characteristics in romance novels all the time, and I feel it's true with With This Woman , though not in a bad way. Ava's character especially, puts up with so much in this book. She goes through the emotional and physical wringer--Jesse's bulldozer nature included, of course--and if we were her in the real world, or any of the supporting characters--shoutout to dear John who puts up with our beloved Lord--, we definitely would've been done with things a lot sooner than later. But, Jodi's characters are sturdy stuff. They can take what she puts them though and I can't wait to see her put them through it all again in This Woman Forever . This--not unlike the upper rooms of The Manor--is the kind of punishment we are gluttons for and willingly submit ourselves to. All in the name of our Queen.
Earlier on this year, I stated over on my Instagram that there would be two potential books that would co-share the spot of my no.1 top reads of this year. The first was the sensational second instalment int the Mister & Missus series, The Missus by E.L.James, and the second was of course, With This Woman . The first came true and I have since continued to sing its praises since its release, but did the second? I'm confessing here and now that it is in fact...also true! Having two ladies, who I will admire for as long as eternity is, as my top two reads of this year is such a proud honour as a reader. If I had to pick two women to read only for the rest of my life, it would be these two and the worlds they give to us through their words.
Any Jodi Ellen Malpas book is an automatic 5-star read, but With This Woman is truly deserving of that rating for any and all ways you can think of for your own personal tastes, as I have with mine. This is not just for Jodi but for all involved. From the cover design, to the people who helped with the nitty-gritty, everyone. This is a 5-star read for all.
To Jodi, thank you for giving us a deeper insight to someone who is more than a book boyfriend to us, but is a companion when we don't have a real-life counterpart. Jesse Ward will mean to us more than we could ever say, and we'll be eternally grateful to you for giving us a double dose of the man who fell from grace but like the lord himself, was resurrected--along with his heart--and given a second chance.
Jesse, Ava, Kate, Sam, Drew, John & the crew, I'll be seeing you in This Woman Forever . Save the date, May the 14th be with us!