Laura’s review of Rare and Precious Things (The Blackstone Affair, #4) by Raine Miller

If you read and enjoyed Fifty Shades Freed (Fifty Shades, #3)by E.L. James, Complete Me (Stark Trilogy, #3) by J. Kenner, and This Man Confessed (This Man, #3) by Jodi Ellen Malpas then you will LOVE this book!!

Basic Summary

              The fourth part of the New York Times bestselling series, The Blackstone Affair: A bright beginning for two damaged souls fighting for their hard-won love, and the promise of a new hope to secure their happily ever after.

                Fresh from an idyllic honeymoon along the Italian coast, the Blackstones prepare for the birth and their precious baby and the challenges of settling into a new home.  But things get complicated when specters from the past reappear to threaten the very foundation of their relationship.  Ethan and Brynne will have to fight harder than ever for each other.  Rare and Precious Things is the story of two people who both need the other in order to complete, but learn just how “rare” their brand of love is when they have to risk everything in order to hold onto it.

First Impressions

                This book books picks right up where Eyes Wide Open (Blackstone Affair, #3) leaves off, which Ethan and Brynne’s wedding night in their new house in the country.  As much as I love Ethan and Brynne the first 20% of the book is kind of slow.  The entire beginning of this book takes place during their honeymoon and for me kind of got a little boring.  The sex scenes in this installment for me were a little glossed over compared to the other books.   Don’t get me wrong there is plenty of sex in the beginning of the book which I’m sure will translate into the rest of the book but the previous books their sex scenes were very detailed from beginning to end and in this book either the foreplay is detailed then the middle and end are summed up in about five sentences.  Other times the beginning isn't even talked about and the end part of the sex scene is in detail.  I get that the lovemaking between them now is more about the intimacy between a man and wife not about the sex and the way those scenes are written definitely shows that but it’s just consistent if you consider the entire series. 

                I do like though that this book picked right up where the other one left off so you don’t miss a minute of Ethan and Brynne and I totally can’t get enough of Ethan Blackstone.  It’s so great to see them finally married and what the next steps in their life will be.  This book like the last book switches point of views between the two of them which I really like blending the two together.  Unlike Naked (Blackstone Affair, #1) which was mostly from Brynne’s point of view and All In (Blackstone Affair, #2) was mostly from Ethan’s.  I prefer the blend of the two better because it gives you a better-rounded whole story.

What I Loved

              I like that this book is split into seasons, starting with summer the season of Ethan and Brynne’s wedding and the beginning of their marriage the progressing to Autumn showing a more settled married couple but still in the newly wed stage.  Throughout these four separate parts Brynne’s pregnancy progresses as does Ethan and Brynne settling into married life. 

                This book is filled with the sexual chemistry between Brynne and Ethan which creates lots of sex scenes.  The sexual tension between the two of them is palpable at certain parts and each and every time you really get just how in love they are with each other. 

                There were some really stressful moments over half way through the book which made the story way more interesting.  Ethan is a total romantic and definitely the whole package, there are no words to express just how awesome he is.  I have always liked Ethan a little bit better than the other male characters in book series similar to this because he is more of a self-made man in my eyes.  He didn't get rich because of family money or inheriting a company after his father retired; instead Ethan was in the army and made his money at first by playing poker.  To me he climbed to the top and created his own business based on his expertise and I have a lot more respect for him than I do Gideon Cross or Christian Grey. 

                I love that we got to the bottom of Ethan’s PTSD and what happened while he was a POW because it explains a lot of his actions.  We got bits of from the other books in this series but it’s great to see him actually addressing the issue and taking steps to help him.  This book is filled with a lot of precious moments and I so happy I got to be bystander in Brynne and Ethan’s love story.

Not So Much

                I love Ethan and Brynne and their journey has been awesome to watch development from strangers to husband and wife.  The books before this were exciting and filled with detailed sex scenes, and tons of drama.  Yet, for the first half of the book I felt it was a little slow and I wasn't sure what direction the book was going in.  I would say for the first half of the book there was like this build up to something dramatic happening and then you would turn the page and get that point and it was kind of anti-climactic. 

Brynne is pregnant and the two of them are laying down a life for themselves as a married couple before the baby comes and that’s wonderful I love that we actually get to see the Happily Ever After but that doesn't make for an exciting story.  Brynne’s past kind of comes up to bite both of them in the  ass at a certain point but I thought it would've been a lot worse because there was so much build up and then you get to the part where something dramatic is going to happen then two pages later it’s done.   I just felt like this book wasn't the total roller coaster I have come to expect in this series until about 60% of the way through.

Overall

            Great book I’m glad that we got more Ethan and Brynne.  It’s so wonderful to actually read what happens after the happily ever after.  A lot of loose ends that were in the past three books were addressed in this installment giving you with plenty of closure.  There was a lot of touching moments in this book as well as some funny ones.  Like I said before though the first part of the book was a little boring and lacked direction but things certainly picked up towards the end.  I like that the point of views changed through the story and how it was split into four parts reach representing a season.  I liked that a certain point in the book you get to back to the day Brynne walked into the art studio and met Ethan for the first time.  It’s so wonderful being reminded the past it makes it much more sentimental while reminding you how it all began.  The pace of the story was pretty good but I did wish some scenes went into more detail instead of skipped over.   Like I stated before the sex scenes in this book were kind of glossed over at certain points, I know you can go into detail every time they have sex but the details weren't there making it a little inconsistent from the rest of the series. 

                This book was definitely filled with some heart pounding moments, and I liked that my emotions were all over the place a couple times, it kept me on my toes and more interested in what I was reading.  It’s sad to see Brynne and Ethan go because I totally am going to miss him.  I personally would love to see an Ivan and Gaby series, they really intrigue me and that would be awesome to see their stories.  I did feel like some of the supporting characters in this book weren't around a lot and that kind of bothered me.  For example, Gaby is Brynne’s best friend and was in Naked a lot but she’s maybe two scenes in this entire book.  It’s so weird but I would also be excited to have a book or a series based on Lance and his life now, he redeemed himself in my eyes and there is a lot of mystery surrounding him.  Any scene where he was in I very much pictured Alex Minsky as Lance, trying to make a new life for himself. I liked the excerpt from The Passion of Darius which is based off the journals Brynne found in their home.  For a book being the last installment of a series I think this book ended a great note, giving the good bye an Ethan Blackstone fan would appreciate.