Review: About Last Night by Ruthie Knox

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About Last Night
Ruthie Knox
Published June 11, 2012
Random House Publishing Group
230 pages 

Synopsis (from the publisher): Cath Talarico knows a mistake when she makes it, and God knows she’s made her share. So many, in fact, that this Chicago girl knows London is her last, best shot at starting over. But bad habits are hard to break, and soon Cath finds herself back where she has vowed never to go . . . in the bed of a man who is all kinds of wrong: too rich, too classy, too uptight for a free-spirited troublemaker like her. Nev Chamberlain feels trapped and miserable in his family’s banking empire. But beneath his pinstripes is an artist and bohemian struggling to break free and lose control. Mary Catherine—even her name turns him on—with her tattoos, her secrets, and her gamine, sex-starved body, unleashes all kinds of fantasies. When blue blood mixes with bad blood, can a couple that is definitely wrong for each other ever be perfectly right? And with a little luck and a lot of love, can they make last night last a lifetime?

Review: First and foremost, this is one hot romance novel. But, it is so much more than that too. And to think after the first few chapters, I was wondering if there was going to be any substance to this beyond really hot sex. There was...SO much more.

Mary Catherine ("Cath") and Nev ("City") fancy each other from afar every morning on the train to work, but it isn't until they meet on that same train very late at night that something more happens. And once that passion is unleashed, it basically sets everything ablaze around it. But, that's all Cath wants it to be - some no-strings attached sex. She has had a tough life and is hard on herself because of it - and very much unwilling to allow herself to believe she is deserving of love and happiness. Nev would like to change that, but that's hard to do with someone who won't even let him buy her lunch or take her to the movies, let alone open up about her past. Plus, he's got some demons of his own to exorcise.

This book starts out hot, and stays hot pretty much throughout. But, it contains such angst and tension and conflict that my heart ached - for both of them: Nev because he wants to hold onto Cath so tightly but knows that hold is extremely tenuous, and for Cath because she is still holding onto her past and won't let in any sort of future. Ruthie Knox creates these wonderfully intricate, multi-faceted characters who manage to be both perfect and so very flawed all at once. Those details, such as Mary Catherine's permanent inventory of all her mistakes in the form of numbered tattoos across her torso, breathe such life into her story, it is nearly impossible to not imagine them in your head as you read. Needless to say, I loved this book. The cover (while hot and sexy, yeah) should be burned because it doesn't do it enough justice (how about a close up of one of those tattoos or paintings described in the book? a phoenix or a city and a heart??) ...this is so much more than a fluffy romance.

About Last Night: 4.5/5 stars.
Cover: 2/5 -- (on any other book 3.5/5)

Note: I would like to thank the publishers for granting me an e-copy of this book via NetGalley for review purposes, but in no way has this affected my review content.