Shaw Landon loved Rule Archer from the moment she laid eyes on him. Rule is everything a straight-A pre-med student like Shaw shouldn't want - and the only person she's never tried to please. She isn't afraid of his scary piercings and tattoos or his wild attitude. Though she knows that Rule is wrong for her, her heart just won't listen.
To a rebel like Rule Archer, Shaw Landon is a stuck-up, perfect princess - and his dead twin brother's girl. She lives by other people's rules; he makes his own. He doesn't have time for a good girl like Shaw - even if she's the only one who can see the person he truly is.
But a short skirt, too many birthday cocktails, and spilled secrets lead to a night neither can forget. Now, Shaw and Rule have to figure out how a girl like her and a guy like him are supposed to be together without destroying their love...or each other.
The first Marked Men novel in Jay Crownover's combustible New Adult series
Full disclosure: I went into this book expecting to hate it.
I'd been kind of in a rut with New Adult books and being a New Adult author that made it even worse since I felt like I was comparing every book. But I was driving to my parents' house alone and needed an audiobook to listen to. I tried Nicholas Sparks and that put me to sleep so I checked out a copy of Rule on overdrive.
I'd have to say that going in with a bad attitude I expected to hate it and thankfully I was completely wrong.
The thing that makes this book different is Rule Archer. He's not the A-typical alpha bad boy that seems to be repeated over and over in every single NA book. No. Rule is his own delicious hero and we get a lot of him because this book is dual POV (which there needs to be more of in New Adult).
The story opens with Rule in bed with a random chick before Shaw bursts through the door and tells him he needs to get ready for family brunch. It took me a little while to realize that she was just a family friend and I was really concerned that the sexual content was going on between siblings or something, but that was quickly cleared up once we got to the scene at the Archer household and met Rule's brother and the rest of the family.
Shaw wasn't a character I can say I love, but she proved to carry her own weight. She was bright, spunky, and the person who narrated her in the audiobook did a really good job of capturing her voice and the secondary character's voices.
Rule and Shaw may have jumped into the bedroom pretty quickly, but what transpired after that was a story that had me laying in bed at night, eager to listen to these two characters as their relationship progressed and we got to see a deeper side of both of them.
As an audio book it was about eight hours long and definitely worth those eight hours of listening. Shaw's voice was smooth and I really saw it with her character. Rule's took me awhile to warm up to because he did sound older, but after the first few chapters it kind of molded with his personality in that it took on a smoky, whiskey ridden tone.
I highly recommend this as an audiobook for anyone that is looking for something different in the New Adult genre because this will get you out of your slump.
NARRATED BY: SOPHIE EASTLAKE, MICHAEL RAHHAL
LENGTH: 10HRS AND 19 MINS
SERIES: MARKED MEN, BOOK 1
PUBLISHER: HARPER AUDIO
The other books in the Marked Men Series: