TITLE: When I’m With You
SERIES: The Jane Austen Academy Series #3
AUTHOR: Cecilia Gray
PUBLICATION DATE: December 22, 2012
PUBLISHER: Gray Life LLC
PAGES: 216 pages
FORMAT: E-ARC
SOURCE: Publisher via NetGalley
RATING: 4 bows
Kat is determined to become a successful actress. Acting has been a passion as long as she can remember, so when famous classmate Josh Wickham offers to let her be his assistant on a real movie set over Christmas break, there is no way she can refuse him. She’ll be onset with famous actors and actresses and maybe she’ll get her big break.
As the third novel in this series, all the characters are pretty well established. We get nothing new, just Josh being put squarely back into the bad guy role, which I’m slightly annoyed with. I make no secret that one of my favorite Pride & Prejudice retellings is Lost In Austen, A BBC mini-series. Part of the reason I love it is because of what they do with Wickham’s character, so I always feel like his capable of much more and am disappointed when he is still stuck in the perpetual bad guy for bad guys sake role. There are still three more books in the series, so hopefully that will change.
Plotwise, this was adorable. I have not read any of Austen’s works beyond P&P (I know, shame on me), so I can’t speak to how well it represents it’s source material, but I can say that it is my favorite thus far in the series. Kat’s journey felt very realistic and I loved how she just falls into the role of helper on set, trying to give everyone who is struggling a bit of a hand. I also loved how into acting she is. She is hard-core dedicated to that dream and it was awesome to see that.
Henry, the love interest, was a character I instantly loved. He’s charming and sweet and has a hat obsession I can definitely relate to. Once you know the story of the hats, it’s even sweeter. He’s definitely perfect for our Kat, even if it takes a while for them to finally get it together.
As I predicted after reading the first book in this series, it definitely gets better and better. As the series progresses, we get to see more and more of all the characters, even though the books each focus on a specific couple, the other characters aren’t abandoned. In a lot of novels lately where each book in the series focuses on a specific couple, book 1 will portray two girls (or two guys or a guy and a girl) as best friends and then when book two comes out from the friends perspective, it’s like that bestie was lost because we don’t see them much and that is not the case here. We see all the old characters as we are being introduced to new ones. What you really need to know is this series is great, with interesting characters and good writing. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
****Thank you to Gray Life LLC and Cecilia Gray for providing me with an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review****
Bows & Bullets Reviews 