Review: Cole by Tijan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Standalone
Release - February 26, 2017
Genre - Contemporary Mafia Romance
Primarily Heroine POV - 1st person
Heat - 2 out of 5
Length - 314 pages

I shouldn’t have remembered him.
He was just a guy who walked through a restaurant. I didn't know his name. We never made eye contact. There was no connection between us at all.
But I could feel him.
The tingle down my spine. The command in his presence. The snap of tension in the air around him. That was the first time I saw him, and I was captivated.
The second time was different.
He was in the mysterious back elevator of my apartment building. Our eyes met for a fleeting second before the doors closed, and I was staggered. My breath was robbed. My senses on high alert. My body hummed.
That was just the beginning.
He was the leader of the mafia. I was about to fall in love with him, and his name…
Cole Mauricio

Find it here:
Goodreads | Amazon

MY REVIEW

It's been a year since Addison lost her husband, Liam, to a drunk driver. She's been barely living.

"Everything was dull. Grey. Black. White."

With the support of her best friend, Sia, she takes the huge step of finally putting her house on the market in an attempt to move on. She ends up moving into a coveted unit in The Mauricio, a building that is not only expensive and exclusive, but it's shrouded in mystery. And the mystery doesn't end there because she then meets Mr. Mysterious himself, Cole, and he's holding all sorts of secrets.

"This man, whoever he was, whatever kind of man he was, could affect me like no other had in my life."

"I always felt like I was holding my breath when it came to Cole."

It's been a while since I read a Tijan story and I enjoyed the heck out of this one. I loved the sizzling connection between Addison and Cole, the injection of humor, the welcome visit with Carter, and the in-depth back story created for Cole. I found that Cole had a lot more depth to him than Addison did. Maybe his tragic past struck a chord with me but I felt that, aside from Liam's death, Addison didn't have much to save her from being a one-dimensional character. Don't get me wrong, I liked her, but I think I would have been happier to get more of Cole's perspective than hers in what was essentially his story.