Review: NECESSARY RESTORATIONS by Kate Canterbary

Title: Necessary Restorations (The Walshes #3)
Author: Kate Canterbary
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Publication Date: April 15, 2015
Source: bought
Buy Links: Amazon

They liked to call me names. Manwhore. Slut. Player. But I make wrong look so right…

He’s a flawed perfectionist…
I can read women better than any blueprint. I understand their thoughts and feelings, their secret desires and insecurities, and I know how to get rid of them once I get off.

But all bets are off when Tiel Desai slams into my life. She redefines what it means to be friends, and she makes it sound like the filthiest thing I’ve ever heard.

I can’t read the gorgeous conservatory-trained violinist, but she’s the only one keeping me from shattering by small degrees, and I can’t let her go.

She’s wildly independent…
My past—and New Jersey—are far behind me, and now my life is blissfully full of music: playing, teaching, and lecturing, and scouring Boston’s underground scene with an annoyingly beautiful, troubled, tattooed architect.

I’m defenseless against his rooftop kisses, our nearly naked dance parties, the snuggletimes that turn into sexytimes, and his deep, demanding voice.

I have Sam Walsh stuck in my head like a song on repeat, and I’m happy pretending history won’t catch up with me.

The one thing they have in common is a rock-solid disregard for the rules.
They find more in each other than they ever realized they were missing, but they might have to fall apart before they can come together.

It’s the wrongs that make the rights come to life.

Why did I want to read this book?

I have fallen in love with the Walshes since Book 1. I’m always eagerly waiting for the next Walsh sibling to tell his/her story. Now it’s Sam turn and I wanted to know more about him. I couldn’t get a grip of his character in the first two books and I wanted to see all his layers.

What worked for me?

One of my favorite things about Kate Canterbary’s writing style is how she does her characterizations. She doesn’t pull any punches with her characters. They are flesh and bones, good and bad, perfectly flawed and imperfect characters.

As I read through this series, I find that Sam, out of all the six Walsh siblings, is the most affected by the crap (really, it was!) that was their family’s history since their mother died. He’s the one who carries the most scars, although Erin may give him a run for his money in that department.

Sam is a play of lights, sort of, his bordering on the OCD but then in a way he’s self-destructive. To add to this, he’s got all these lines of girls he’d had but then you get the feeling that he’s drowning out his own desire for a healthy relationship. But then he meets Tiel when they got stuck in an elevator and he begins to hyperventilate (physically, at least in the beginning) until he does it less and less so figuratively when he started to spend more and more time with her and found himself happy and maybe just a little bit peaceful whenever he’s with her.

Tiel, on the other hand, I couldn’t get a read on, particularly in the first quarter of the book. She’s has this distant quality to her and I think her initial attachment or attraction to Sam was one of indulgence rather than real affection so basically, I had a hard time liking her. But! The thing with Kate Canterbary’s character is that they tend to surprise you in a lot of ways and I mean this in a very good way. Tiel began to grow on me. As I learned more about her, her struggles, the questions that she asks herself, the comfort that she finds in Sam, even though she didn’t want nor expect it.

They’ve got all these personal issues (and believe me, they have a lot!). They don’t magically disappear and some really wound’t fade away but these become bearable, things that they can face, when they’re together. I knew they were falling in love, you can see it in their actions, in the ways they thought about each other, even if they refuse to put a label on their emotions. These two can be stubborn and more than once, I wanted to knock some sense into them already. But their journey is one that talks about finding that imperfect person that gives you peace, that silences your demons, and basically makes your world a happier place. And in this regard, I think Sam and Tiel’s story is proof of a resilient love.

I think this story is a bit heavier on the emotional aspects compared to the first two books. But never fear! Kate C still brings out the heat in this one! Let’s just say that Sam can be crude sometimes. And to say that he has a dirty mouth would be a bit of an understatement. So yeah, just hearing him talk can you the heat quota sooner rather than later.

What did not work for me?

I wasn’t a fan of the final conflict and confrontation between Sam and Tiel. It was a bit cliche and it hit a pet peeve button on my radar. In a way, I was able to accept it a little given all the personal issues and demons that these two needed to face and to learn to overcome.

My over-all take on it?

This was a Walsh novel with darker emotions but all the heat you’ve come to expect from Kate Canterbary. There were times when I got frustrated with Sam and Tiel, but in the end, I wished so hard for their happy ending. They’re good people with a lot of issues to overcome and it was such a fulfillment to see them find love with each other.

My rating:

Kate Canterbary doesn’t have it all figured out, but this is what she knows for sure: spicy-ass salsa and tequila solve most problems, living on the ocean–Pacific or Atlantic–is the closest place to perfection, and writing smart, smutty stories is a better than any amount of chocolate. She started out reporting for an indie arts and entertainment newspaper back when people still read newspapers, and she has been writing and surreptitiously interviewing people—be careful sitting down next to her on an airplane—ever since. Kate lives on the water in New England with Mr. Canterbary and the Little Baby Canterbary, and when she isn’t writing sexy architects, she’s scheduling her days around the region’s best food trucks.

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More Kate Canterbary on the blog:

Underneath It All (The Walshes #1)
The Space Between (The Walshes #2)