Giving It All by Christi Barth

This is the third in Barth’s Naked Men series. No, the series isn’t about what you might be thinking from its title. It concerns five young men who are in a bad accident in the Alps while in high school and how that one crisis had an impact on all their lives. Now that they’re grown up, they had a blog and then a podcast called Naked Men which was just them discussing guy stuff. I’m not sure how many guys would hang around discussing topics like their relationships, but women probably enjoy thinking that they did.

Giving It All is about Logan who has just flown back from Kazakhstan upon hearing that he has a younger sister he never knew about. That sister is Madison from Wanting It All. Logan works in disaster relief traveling to places where a catastrophe has ruined the lives of so many so that he can help them rebuild their lives. He’s a genuinely good guy with somewhat of a hero complex. On the way back while stopped on a Caribbean island, he happens to run into Brooke Gallagher, the girl he had a crush on in high school. They enjoy a fling during a hurricane because well, who wouldn’t? They bond in that one night together.

They both return to Washington, D.C. where Logan reconnects with his four best friends and gets to know his new sister. And he and Brooke, of course, continue their fling.

Nothing in this book is that surprising. The reader can figure out pretty quickly that these two former friends are going to fall in love instead of just having a fling. And he’s going to want to leave to return to disaster relief, but hate to leave Brooke behind.

The fun is in the journey of following along as Logan and Brooke learn more about themselves and what they need to be happy and fulfilled in their lives.

It was a plus for me that they do this while exploring unexpected sites in Washington, D.C. where I lived for four years and enjoyed revisiting some of these locations. It made me want to follow in their tracks and explore some of those hidden, romantic locations.

I received an ARC of this book, from the publisher, via NetGallery, in exchange for a fair and honest review