Before Jamaica Lane

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Synopsis

After her mother's death, librarian Olivia Holloway moved to Edinburgh with her dad, hoping for a fresh start. She quickly fit into a group of close-knit friends of which Nate Sawyer is also a member. Olivia has body image issues, and having spent much of her time caring for her mom through her illness, she has very limited experience with the opposite sex. Lacking in the confidence she needs, Olivia tends to be extremely awkward and painfully shy around hot guys, but with Nate everything is free and easy. They've bonded over the shared loss of people they loved, have told each other their deepest secrets, and spend a lot of time together outside their friends group. Knowing Nate is a player with commitment issues, though, Olivia has never entertained the idea of a romantic relationship with him even though she finds him very attractive. However, when she develops a crush on a graduate student who frequents the library and can't seem to say more than two words to the guy, she all but begs Nate to give her flirting lessons. Nate happily obliges, making Olivia feel special, but flirting soon turns into kissing, and eventually she's requesting sex lessons, too. They both think they can keep it compartmentalized into a friends-with-benefits arrangement, but as the weeks go by, Olivia finds herself falling for Nate. As Nate's relationship fears come back to haunt him, though, can Olivia give him the grace he needs to figure things out, or will it spell the end of not only their romance, but also their friendship?

Review

Before Jamaica Lane is the third full-length novel in Samantha Young's On Dublin Street series. This one pairs Cam's best friend, Nate, with newcomer Olivia, a librarian who is the daughter of the man Jo (Down London Road) viewed as a father-figure growing up. Olivia grew up in the States and just recently moved to Scotland with her father after the death of her mother, where she's been warmly welcomed into the group of twenty-something friends who are the core characters of the series. When Olivia and Nate first meet there's an instant spark of attraction, but months have gone by and neither has acted on it. Instead, they've become the best of friends, often spending time together outside of the group. They've shared a lot with each other about their pasts and bonded over the loss of people they loved. Nate lost the love of his life at a very young age, and since then has become a player who avoids relationships. Olivia is the polar opposite. Painfully shy around hot guys she likes, she's never been in a relationship and has only had sex once in her life. She's attracted to Ben, a grad student she's seen around the library, but always becomes tongue-tied when she tries to talk to him, so she asks Nate to give her flirting lessons. He obliges by helping her see her worth and gain confidence in herself, while teaching her what to say, which gradually morphs into kissing lessons as well. When she still can't seem to talk to Ben without mucking it up, Olivia proposes that Nate give her sex lessons, too. She thinks she can compartmentalize it into a sex-only relationship that won't ruin their friendship, but when weeks go by with Nate acting like they're in a real relationship, she can't help falling in love with him. But Nate is still grieving the loss of his former girlfriend and Olivia isn't interested in playing second-best.

Olivia's American mother was madly in love with her Scottish father while they were in college, but afterward, they went their separate ways. Because her mom didn't want to tie her father down, she never told him about her pregnancy, so Olivia didn't meet her dad until her teen years. Ever since then, they've been close, but Olivia's mom recently died of cancer. She spent so much energy caring for her mom that she never had time for relationships. She's only been kissed twice and had sex just once and it was a terrible experience. She also has some body image issues. That combined with her lack of experience in the romance department have made her extremely awkward when dealing with the opposite sex. With Nate, though, everything is effortless. They fit together like missing puzzle pieces and really get each other, sharing many interests. Both are also grieving lost loved ones. That's why Olivia makes her proposals to Nate. He's a great teacher who makes Olivia feel beautiful and more confident. But it's still not enough to untie her tongue around Ben, so she asks for more. Initially it's all just playful and flirty with lots of unbelievably fantastic sex thrown in, but somewhere along the line, hearts become involved. After a particularly intense love-making session, Nate just drops a bomb that he can't continue, leaving Olivia heartbroken. She knows how much he loved his former girlfriend, so even when Nate comes back trying to make amends, she can't seem to let him back in. She wants the kind of love her parents and her best friends share, and won't settle for someone who can't give her all of his heart. I loved Olivia and could relate to her very well with her love for books, her geekiness, and all her insecurities. I like how she blossomed under Nate's attentions. She was perhaps a little stubborn at the end but it all worked out so I can't be too disappointed in her.

Like all the books in this series, our heroine, Olivia, is the first-person narrator, so we only really see Nate through her eyes. I liked him from the start. He's a flirty, seductive photojournalist who reviews movies on the side. He was clearly attracted to Olivia the moment they met, but perhaps because she's like a sister to his best friend's fiancee and he didn't want things to get weird between them, or perhaps because he sensed that she was someone who deserved things he didn't feel he could give her, he didn't pursue her. Nate did become one of Liv's best friends, often sharing movie nights and other fun times together with her. They get each other's weird sense of humor and both understand loss. Nate's teenage love, Alana, was everything to him, but she died of cancer, like Liv's mom, when she was barely eighteen. He made a promise to never forget her, and has a tattoo to remind him of her every day. I sensed that he felt allowing himself to love someone else would be a betrayal of her memory, so instead, he mostly engages in one-night stands, always keeping it casual and ghosting out if the woman he's with starts sending relationship signals. When Liv asks him to give her flirting and kissing lessons, he's happy to help out. When she asks for sex lessons, too, he worries it might change things between them and makes her promise not to let their friendship die. However, it starts to become apparent that things are getting pretty real for Nate, too, even though he doesn't seem to want to go down that road. When he breaks things off with Liv and she says she can't continue their friendship because she's fallen in love with him, Nate is clearly confused, heartbroken and miserable. I'm really glad that he figured things out and didn't give up on Olivia, pulling out all the stops to woo her back and make her believe that he genuinely loved her, too.

Before Jamaica Lane ended up being just as fantastic as all the other books in the series so far. I loved Nate and Olivia together. I'm a total sucker for friends-to-lovers romances and their story was amazing. Olivia is completely relatable in nearly every aspect of her character. The only thing I maybe would have liked is if she'd lightened up on Nate a little sooner. I kind of agreed with her dad and her friends that she was being a bit too stubborn, but like I said it all worked out perfectly in the end. Nate is deliciously flirty and knows exactly how to treat a woman right in bed and how to woo her when he really puts his mind to it. He's also a seductive dirty talker, which I loved. He was clearly hurting just as much as Olivia when the breakup occurred, so I'm happy that he figured it all out and won Olivia back. There were a few times when I wished I had his perspective, because I wanted to know a little more about what he was thinking, so I look forward to reading his POV scenes in the series extras. All the past heroes and heroines, along with future main characters Hannah, Marco, and Cole all appear throughout the book. I love how close knit this friends group is and how they always look out for one another. We get some new developments for Braden and Joss (On Dublin Street) and Adam and Ellie (Until Fountain Bridge). We also get to see a little more of what's happening between Hannah and Marco who are aged up to become the hero and heroine of the next full-length book, Fall From India Place. I was also excited to learn that there's more story for Nate and Olivia in the Hart's Boardwalk cross-over novella, On Hart's Boardwalk. I just genuinely love all these characters and inhabiting their world and can't wait to continue soon.

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Samantha Young

Themes

Book Lovers
Friends Before Lovers
Geniuses, Scholars & Scientists aka Geeks - Heroines
Tortured Heroes