Out Of Line by Jen McLaughlin Review

Hosted by InkslingerPR

My Thoughts:  Boy I devoured this one. I actually ate it up. Quickly too, and now I want more. 


Carrie Wallington is a college freshman. She’s attending college on the West Coast, as far away from her father as she can get. See, her father is a big-time politician in Washington, DC and has spent all of Carrie’s life practically smothering her. He’s kept her surrounding with guards at all times – they’ve gone everywhere with her, even to the point of watching her sleep. (Creepy, right?) Well, Carrie’s had enough, and she’s convinced her father to let her go to college on her own, without a guard to protect her. Nobody out here on the West Coast knows who she is and she isn’t about to give up her identity. She isn’t about to do anything at all to draw attention to herself, to give up the freedom she’s finally gotten, because it feels so good to be able to walk down the sidewalk alone, to be able to walk around campus alone, to be able to sit by the ocean alone. Carrie feels like she can finally just breathe.


Carrie’s at a party one night with her roommate – she didn’t really want to go in the first place, but she went because her roommate asked her to. She didn’t last very long inside the party, so she stepped outside for fresh air and felt someone lurking in the shadows. Carrie yelled for the person lurking in the shadows to show themselves, and out stepped this hunk of a man – super good-looking – and Carrie was immediately drawn to his body and his face. This is the first time she’s been free to really look at a guy, to talk to a guy without a guard right by her, so doggone it – she’s going to! But she isn’t stupid, and she isn’t giving up her identity. She doesn’t want any reason for daddy-dearest to send a guard out to protect her. So she talks to this hunk of a man, but she’s very careful about it. His name? Finn. 


Finn Coram is a surfer. He’s a Marine. He rides a motorcycle. He’s very good-looking. And he seems interested enough in Carrie to have a conversation with her. (She is pleased!) What Carrie doesn’t realize is that her Father DID, in fact, hire a guard to follow her around and protect her while she’s a student on the West Coast, and she is currently talking to him. Finn works for Carrie’s father and as the youngest man on staff, he was the obvious pick to be Carrie’s guard because of his ability to blend in among a college crowd. Finn realizes it was probably a mistake to blow his cover to Carrie because he realizes, as he is talking to her, that she isn’t at all what he expected. 


See, Carrie is very likable. She isn’t at all the stuck-up, snotty, rich-girl socialite that he thought. He expected a girl that would be shopping and partying all the time. Instead, Carrie spends her time studying and volunteering to help the less fortunate in the communities around her. She donates money and gift cards to needy families. She even donates her designer clothes to the girls in her dorm that need them more than she does. 


The problem? Finn has begun to spend more time around Carrie because she simply wanted to learn to surf. What started out as simple surfing lessons became hanging out on the weekends while they both were growing increasingly smitten with one another. When Carrie made her growing feelings known to Finn, he kept her at arm’s length for a little while – because he had to – but before too long, he couldn’t help himself and he let his guard down. He had already fallen for her long ago. 


To complicate things, there are absolute ramifications for Finn if he blows his cover to Carrie or “touches” her – he signed a contract with her father! And now he’s gone and fallen in love with her? Oh dear. Finn knows he needs to tell Carrie the truth about who he is and why he is in California, but he’s afraid that when he does, he will lose her forever.