Overprotected by Jennifer Laurens

No one could possibly feel more like a circus-performing animal than Ashlyn. She may be a very talented musical composer, with Hollywood aspirations, but she's shackled in her father's gilded world. She is beyond frustrated & wants to do something wild & forbidden just to prove her point that not everything is a threat. Unfortunately because of one teeny, tiny kidnapping incident when she was a child, her father has forced her to keep a "companion" (bodyguard) with her whenever she leaves the house.

The last companion was fired for getting too "comfortable" with Ashlyn & her father knows just how to fix that. He hires Colin, a childhood "friend" a few years older than Ashlyn as her companion in the hopes of allowing her to feel less constricted. To Ashlyn, Colin is anything but a friend. As children he mercilessly teased & tormented her. Now that he's back in her life, she's quite terrified of him, but in a different way. Now she's terrified of what she's capable of since every time she feels him close to her she wants to do things that she has only read about in her romance novels.

Can she really trust herself with Colin & if it comes down to it, will he protect her no matter the cost?

So...this book really gives everything away on the back cover. Other than the minor details surrounding her amazing musical talents, this really is a cut & dry "star-crossed lovers" story. Now don't get me wrong, Colin is definitely dreamy & I really liked his & Ashlyn's interactions. Everything was just too perfect for me throughout the novel though. Everything was so convenient & just happened to play out just right for this story to unfold. There was a sense of improbability that I just couldn't shake. So many things defied my capacity for suspending belief in what is supposed to be a realistic fiction (maybe just a romance?). I guess in the end it was just too put together for me.

The author's writing is right on the mark & she really has a way of capturing the essence of the music such that I've not truly experienced before in book form. That would have to be what salvaged the book for me, I could only suspend my realism so much, but the writing was well crafted. I look forward to more books by this author.

ARC graciously provided by Around the World Tours