Beard with Me (Winston Brothers, #6)
Penny Reid
‘Beard With Me’ is the origin story of Billy Winston and Scarlet St. Claire (aka Claire McClure) and is just the beginning of their epic love story. No one is better at surviving than Scarlet St. Claire and making the best out of circumstances beyond her control is Scarlet’s specialty. In an apocalyptic situation, she’d be the last person on earth, hermitting like a pro, singing along to her CD Walkman, and dancing like no one is watching. Scarlet is clever, Scarlet is careful, and Scarlet is smart . . . except when it comes to Billy Winston. No one is better at fighting than Billy Winston and raging against his circumstances—because nothing is beyond his control—is Billy’s specialty. In an apocalyptic situation, he’d be the first person on earth to lead others to safety, overcome catastrophe, or die trying. Billy is fearless, Billy is disciplined, and Billy is honorable . . . except when it comes to Scarlet St. Claire.
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This wasn't really what I was expecting.
I was surprised that the story went as far back as the characters being 14 and 16. I mean, I knew they grew up in the same town/sort of together, and this was their origin story... It was just different basically reading a YA book of characters we have read about as adults.
(On a random side note, I was pleased to see a female character at age 14 having sexual thoughts and even thinking about touching herself, I feel like this area is still minimally talked about in the romance genre and our general culture, especially the idea of a pubescent girl possibly masturbating. Anyway, just like "yay for the writer to acknowledge that the 14 year old is thinking and feeling lusty!")
I wanted the story to cover more time--even Scarlet realizes at the end that she's basically fallen for Billy over the course of 7-10 days. He didn't get much of a chance to teach her the guitar or for them to really get to know each other. As a jaded adult, it could be easy to dismiss the intense feelings these teenagers were experiencing as hormones and fleeting. I think if this had covered a year or even six months it would have been more developed and possibly harder hitting to the reader.
I really enjoyed reading Billy's perspective, he's been this... aloof serious character that we haven't gotten a chance to know from other books in the series.
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