Just One Silver Fox

4.25 stars-- JUST ONE SILVER FOX is the seventh instalment in Deborah Cooke’s contemporary, adult FLATIRON FIVE FITNESS erotic, romance series focusing on the men and women who work for the exclusive Flatiron Five Fitness. This is forty-five year old, human resources manager, widow and mother Jacquie Morgan, and forty-eight year old, former Navy SEAL Pierce Aston’s story line. JUST ONE SILVER FOX can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty. Any important information from the previous instalments is revealed where necessary. Told from dual third person perspectives (Jacquie and Pierce) JUST ONE SILVER FOX follows the building romance and relationship between forty-five year old, human resources manager and widow Jacquie Morgan, and forty-eight year old, former Navy SEAL Pierce Aston. Twenty years earlier, a then twenty five year old Jacquie Morgan was widowed and left a single mother to four children under the age of four. In the ensuing time Jacquie worked to support her children, never having time to focus on any other relationship believing she had found the love of her life, and then lost. Meeting former Navy SEAL Pierce Aston, a member at Flatiron Five Fitness where she works as their human resources manager, gave our heroine pause but Jacquie refused to cross the line between $ex and romance, leaving Pierce Aston struggling in the wake of their one-night stand. Lonely for company Jacquie continues to give our hero mixed signals as it pertains to their building relationship and in this Pierce refuses to be Jacquie’s play thing, if only for awhile. What ensues is the building romance and relationship between Jacquie and Pierce, and the potential fall-out as Jacquie’s heart has hardened to another happily ever after, pushing Pierce out of her life. Pierce Aston has done it all, and finds it difficult adjusting to civilian life. Constantly pulled back into the world of military security, Pierce knows that to move on with his life, he is going to have to set up shop, and locate the men and women he knows and trust but falling for Jacquie Morgan was never in the plans, and said woman was refusing to accept there was something more than a one-night stand. The relationship between Pierce and Jacquie is one of immediate attraction but Jacquie makes it clear she wants nothing more than $ex from out story line hero. Having raised four children to be successful adults, Jacquie was refusing to settle down in the wake of the demons from her past controlling the emotional fall-out of the present. Pierce Aston tired of the mixed signals, walks away, but not before professing one last time where his heart belonged. The $ex scenes are intimate and passionate without the use of over the top, sexually graphic language and text. There is a large ensemble cast of secondary and supporting characters including all four of Jacquie’s now adult children; several members of the Flatiron Five Fitness family, as well as former security specialists who have worked with our hero in the past. Here’s hoping the author has plans for a spin off series focusing on Pierce Aston and SILVER FOX SECURITY. JUST ONE SILVER FOX is a story of second chances, of a sort, for one woman who struggles to move on from the past. The character driven premise is realistic, inviting and inspiring; the characters are edgy and spirited; the romance is intimate, provocative and seductive.