Beckham 101: The Kate and Robert Chronicles
by Suzanne Eglington
Xlibris


"'There's my girl. Baby, you are mineall mine and only mine. I don't share.'"

Fresh from their second and full-sized honeymoon across the Atlantic, Kate and Robert Beckham are back into their routines and enjoying their lives. Resolving the cliffhanger from the previous book, Kate finds herself home alone and confronted by a jealous ex-lover of Robert's, police officer Chris Foss. The conversation between the two women is civil if not icy at first, but before long, Chris has Kate at gunpoint and is ready to kill her to win Robert back. Kate's future brother-in-law Kevin, also a police officer, is able to protect Kate from Chris' jealous rage, but Chris is wracked with grief and ultimately ends her own life shortly afterwards.

Meanwhile, Robert's old friend Jimmy comes to town after a long period of training in Canada and New Mexico. Kate and her friends are all shocked by how attractive Jimmy is while learning all about the younger days of him and Robert. Robert remains faithful as ever to Kate, but Pepper and Dallas are both charmed by Jimmy, who is taken by the sisters as well. The whirlwind romances involving Kate's friends now seem threatened by this newcomer, who swears he's only having fun but can't seem to keep his eyes or hands off the other girls. Kate and Robert are happy regardless of what happens as long as they have each other, but they have their own stress to deal with. Between training at the dojo and the gym, celebrity family visits from Robert's side of the family, as well as when Kate's Uncle Jack, or JJ shows up.

Compared to the previous entry in this series, this book is much shorter but still attains a similar level of storytelling through longer chapters made up of more comprehensive scenes. The subject matter still provides plenty of rich material for romantic fantasy. The men are powerful and strong, and Kate and Robert's lifestyle strikes a balance between modesty and opulence; sometimes sharing quiet meals at home and sometimes heading out in fast classic cars to a pub, restaurant, or nightclub.

Still, there is a noticeable difference in this book compared to the previous two. This story strikes in between the first and second in terms of the amount of erotic content. Gone are the exotic locales and travel themes from the previous installment, replaced with a stronger focus on the daily lives of Kate and Robert and how they intersect. Even with a first-person narrative, the story focuses largely on the other characters that have just been mostly in the background until now. This change provides an opportunity for more variety in the romance and drama of the story, even though it's all told through Kate's perspective and thus vicarious even for her.

Readers of the previous books will find this third entry in the series to be something of a compromise in terms of style, length, and content of the other books in the series. There's a good amount relating to the private side of the bedroom door, but it doesn't overwhelm or weigh down the rest of the story. The story has reached a point where reading the earlier books becomes necessary to understand everything that's going on, but the flip side of that coin is that the story has done a stronger job of coming together and forming a foundation that the next trilogy should build upon.

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