Fiercely Emma (Cake #3)

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel there was attraction at first sight, compassion, slow-burn build-up to love, convincing conflict, depth of characters, so much humour, heartbreak and redemption, and love wins all.

Emma is a nurse and sister of the world-famous rock-star Jake, hero of

Cake: A Love Story

(5 stars in my opinion). In FIERCELY EMMA the story weaves Emmas past and present events in interleaving chapters. The past colours Emmas present and cleverly reveals how her mind works. Overall, what is revealed adds to what you learn about her famous brother Jake in the first and second books in this series

Cake: A Love Story

and

The Theory Of Second Best: Cake Series Book Two

.

In contrast, WOW, this storys hero Finn came from a humble homelife so far removed from Emmas I feared shed freeze with judgemental horror. But Emma just rolls with it all. What a champ.

I love this authors stories despite being frustrated by the writing style sometimes. Namely, being TOLD after the event the next day about a significant first intimate encounter or other major event instead of experiencing it live. I cant give specific examples without spoilers. Overall, however, the stories are well written and I cant wait for the next instalment as we return to Jake in

Cake: The Newlyweds: Cake Series Book Four

.

I loved the narrators Zachary Webber and Andi Arndt in the Audible version.

My Review:
Overall: 4.5
Performance: 4.75
Story: 4.5

It’s no secret I’ve loved this series. The series started with Cake, which is the story of Jake McAllister and how he finds his way to Casey and healing. Jake was kidnapped in a horrific event that has molded him into the man he is today. For five weeks, he was held by a monster. But that event didn’t just affect Jake. He had five brothers and sister and two parents at home dealing with the worry, the fallout, the mental wear and tear that ensued because of it all. Every one of them have their scars and the subsequent books in the series are about the siblings. They all became the adults they are today because of what happened then.

It’s a heartbreaking, emotional look at how a person’s life can change on a dime.

This story is about Emma. She was 16 years old when Jake was kidnapped. And like most 16 yo’s her world was all about her. Well, when Jake was kidnapped his mom fell apart and stopped being a mother to her other 5 children. Emma ended up taking up the slack, especially for the two littles that didn’t understand what was going on and simply weren’t old enough to fend for themselves. For all intents and purposes, Emma became the mother to all of them. And while she’s close to her siblings as an adult and has a unique relationship with each of them, she’s never been able to forgive their mother for her failings.

Finn has similar mother issues. She had him when she was 15, in a toilet, and then promptly threw him in the trash. But somehow she managed to keep custody of him, although she has never been a real mother to him. Despite all that Finn is one of the most positive, upbeat guys you can ever imagine. He’s simply happy. Yeah, he had a really crappy upbringing, but he doesn’t blame his mother. In fact, he still helps her with the wreck that is her life.

So, two very different characters…fun-loving Finn and uptight, OCD Emma…and they connect at a music festival (where Jake, Emma’s brother is one of the headline acts). But they worked so darn well together. At first, Emma doesn’t want to have anything to do with Finn, but slowly she softens over time because he simply charms away her arguments. It’s a slow build between them, but it’s so good.

I loved everything about this story. It’s told in a series of flashbacks to how Emma dealt with her family and how they imploded when Jake was kidnapped, which gives the reader so much insight into why she’s so messed up now. I loved that…first of all because Jake’s story is fascinating and it shows everyone which just makes me more obsessed about all the rest of the sibling’s stories. I’m ready for more. Bring on book #4.

Cake is one of my all time favorite romance novels. I have encouraged every friend of mine who reads romance to read this book and they have all loved it. I LOVE this family and I LOVE this author. Since getting my first Kindle in 2010 I have now read 2330 romance novels so it is difficult to impress me but Fiercely Emma did just that. Every facet of this book absolutely fascinated me from the beautifully created characters to the bright witty dialogue and the pure brilliance of the story. My favorite part of Emma’s story was the interspersed scenes from 2004 detailing what the family went through during Jake’s horrific 5 week kidnapping and subsequent return home a broken boy. We learned about Jake’s abuse in Cake but I thought that giving us the family’s perspective of the trauma they suffered too was brilliant. And Finn, oh Finn. I adored him from the moment he first appeared on the page. He was the perfect hero to our icy heroine who never wanted to experience love and family of her own because of what her family went through. This book was just perfect for me, I read it in one sitting. I look forward to book four but I would really like to see Keith get his own story, please don’t end this series at Book 4. In fact I would even be happy to see Finn’s brother Rocky as a hero in a future book???

A fabulous addition to an outstanding series. Beautiful Emma, so together, so lost. Again, J Bengtsson’s signature style of intense emotions spread across the spectrum of feeling, bringing laughter, tears, heartache, romance and, ultimately, the enormous satisfaction of reading a thoroughly good book.
The audio is also outstanding and provides the opportunity to hear detail and nuance that can be missed when reading. Wonderful.

A great addition to the Cake series, this book is Emma’s story.
Emma is difficult to understand in the first 2 books but in this book you learn to understand exactly how she feels and her reason for those feelings.
She unexpectedly meets Finn (Indians Jones lol) They become instant friends but Emma knows it’s so much more, this scares her!!
I’m not going to spoil this book for you, buy it now to find out what happens.

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