This is my first Joya Ryan novel and I immensely enjoyed the experience. I'm already checking to see what else I can get my hands on by her and I will certainly be back for the story of Gage's friend East.
Tell Me You Need Me is kind of interesting twist on some of the usual romance themes. There are commitment issues because what is a romance novel without commitment issues but in this book both the main characters have the issues. Chloe and Gage have been carrying on a two year long 'now you see me, now you don't' super hot long distance romance. Gage is a e search and rescue specialist, his job takes him all over the country but during his down time, he is giving Chloe the business in the bedroom and it is HAWT. Chloe is running her mother's restaurant and is tethered to her home town where Gage occasionally visits. The interesting thing is that Gage wants to commit to a woman, but not a geographic location and Chloe is committed to the location but she can't bring herself to commit to a man.
For Chloe's part, she watched her Mother suffer from a broken heart after being abandoned by her Father and is adamant that she will not suffer the same fate. The only way Chloe can come up with to avoid being hurt is to never open herself up to a man. But ohhhhh Gage is my favorite bossy alpha Hero who doesn't give a single eff about Chloe's defenses. Gage has a few weeks in town and decides he wants to explore where things could go with Chloe and he slowly works to break down her defenses. What I loved about Gage's courtship of Chloe was the twist where Gage denies Chloe sex until she opens up more to the possibility of a relationship. I got a kick out of Chloe trying to figure out the romance thing after a life time of closing herself off to the possibility. I also found Chloe's efforts to get Gage to give it up thoroughly entertaining.
I love the writing of this book, I enjoyed the main characters and the supporting characters, the dialogue is engaging and fun to follow, all in all I highly recommend this book. The only reason this was not a 5 star read for me was because some of the reciting of Chloe's reasons for not wanting to be in a relationship got a little repetitive. I was like I get it, I get it, you don't want to be hurt like your Mom was. The other issue for me was that I did not understand Gage working so hard to get Chloe to commit to him (knowing she had commitment issues) without changing his mind about his willingness to commit to Chloe's hometown. I was especially puzzled by Gage because his friend East explicitly told him that his plan didn't make sense and he still wouldn't listen to reason. It works out in the end but Gage's continued inability to change while wanting Chloe to change certainly caused some extra drama in the book. It irritated me enough that I dropped one star off my rating but honestly, drama can be fun and adds a little complexity to the plot. So it doesn't change my enthusiastic recommendation of this author or this book that Gage acted like a dumbazz, I mean he is a guy.
**ARC provided by Publisher**
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