spanglish_literature_karina 's review for:

Honor by Danielle Baker
3.25
emotional inspiring sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

 My comments are going to be similar to the ones I gave in my review for Protect and I don't want anyone to think I am not encouraging you to read this book because I am. I think the series as a whole was worth reading, at least once. For me, none of these books are going to be on my "to be re-read," but I'm glad I got to read them once, and I discovered two new authors in the process.

I said in my review for Fight that I love all 5 books that I had previously read written by Sloane St. James. Both Danielle Baker and Paisley Hope were on my radar, but I hadn't actually read their books before. I don't think a collaboration series is the right place to give a full review of an author's writing style. It gives me a good idea of the kind of work they do but, at the end of the day, all of the books within a series need to complement each other. With that said, I am going to confirm that I enjoyed Danielle and Paisley's work enough in this series to push their books on my TBR to a high spot and hopefully get to some of them within this year. Let's be honest. One of the main reasons I put this series at the top of my TBR when it came out 3 months ago is because I love Sloane's work. Her books are some of the more spicier books that I read in 2024 and I was hoping to get that in Fight. I was a little disappointed when I saw that it was "tame" compared to her Lakes hockey series. I am hoping that is the case with the work of Danielle and Paisley. I'm going to talk about Danielle in this post specifically. Okay, Danielle knows how to set a spicey scene because, really, Xander wanted to get kinky with Teddy. However, I found that the climax (hmmm) came just a little too quickly on the page. Pun intended? No, really, there was no real drawing out of the experience. We went from dirty talk, a few thrusts and then the classic "Come for me pretty girl" and they were done. I barely had time to get all hot and bothered.

Now on to the plot, which is what a book is supposed to be about. I'm going to admit that I let my emotions get in the way here. I've never experienced grief the way that Teddy has so I can't talk from personal experience and I know that, as Violette and Scottie tell Teddy,

There’s no timeline on grief or how you choose to live your life. Healing isn’t linear, Teddy. There will be good days and there will still be really hard days, too.


but there is still a way that it was handled in this book that I didn't like. When we saw in Protect that Xander had helped Teddy deliver Bea, and that there was an attraction he felt for her, I was hoping that this story would have taken place at least a year later. I wish Teddy had taken time to process her grief, deal with and maybe heal from it, and develop a friendship with Xander as opposed to an acquaintanceship that she had with him. I think my first boundary with the story is how Teddy dealt with her loss. She basically shoved her feelings aside to be there for her children, deal with a pregnancy and then jump right into hormones and horniness. Her feelings felt too rushed. It's not that she started flirting with Xander almost 9 months after the death of her husband, it was that she didn't give herself to properly process everything. Yes, she cried every night, but she didn't heal or start to heal.

There were conversations that Teddy eventually had in the book that I had hoped would have happened earlier. I spent a good part of the book wondering why she wasn't talking to certain people about her feelings. And, yes, I understand she doesn't need permission to feel an attraction or even act on that attraction, but out of respect, I think it would have helped me as a reader if the conversations had happened earlier. Not to mention, both conversations happened because the other person initiated them, not Teddy. That..uggg, it just sits wrong with me.
Okay, spoiler, I am going to give my thoughts below because I hate being so vague

1. The conversation between Colleen and Teddy, I think, should have happened a lot sooner. Yes, Colleen was pushing Teddy to look at Xander and maybe even flirt with him. That is a clear sign that her mother-in-law was encouraging her to find happiness and find love again. Why couldn't Teddy just be open with her, considering the good relationship and love and respect that this woman had for each other? Why didn't Teddy reach out to Colleen and ask for that motherly advice that could have helped her? It was Colleen who had to talk to Teddy, and long after, Teddy and Xander started dating. Out of respect for the family that Teddy built with Logan and being embraced by Logan's parents, I think it would have been nice for her to talk to Colleen sooner.
2. The conversation with Dalton. I understand that maybe Penny is too young to fully understand the relationship between Xander and Teddy and that she will most likely forget a lot about her father based on the age she was when Logan died, but it has to be confusing for a toddler to see her mother kissing a man when her father isn't around anymore. However, Dalton is at an age where he understands. Seeing that he is a boy who looks up to Xander and is looking to fill that male role model that was left empty when Logan died, I think they could have sat down and had a chat with Dalton. They could have explained the role that Xander was going to play now in the house and see if he had any fears regarding his job. It took Dalton a while to break down and express his thoughts, and only after Xander was hurt. Imagine how much anxiety he had been feeling on his own without anyone talking to him.


I did get a feeling from these books that, while we won't get more books in the series, what kinds of spin-offs we will have? Once we found out that Xander had 2 brothers, I figured Danielle would create a spin-off series starting Zach and Joel and I'm glad to see that this is coming. While the other books don't mention any spin-off, I'm hoping Opp gets a book, too.