Mystery Man (Dream Man, 1) Mass Market Paperback – August 27, 2013

If you have never read a Kristen Ashley book, I recommend you start and this one is a great one. The main female characters are women that you want to be friends with. All the main male characters are wonderfully delicious alpha males, who we all love and wish were ours. This book does not disappoint.Gwen, the heorine, is someone that we can relate to. I definitely related to her love of shoes and Little Black Dresses, although I will admit I never counted my LBDs until I read this book. I also liked that the fact that she has "spunk" and is not a pushover. The troubles that she gets herself into make for great reading. Even after drive-by shooting, house fires and kidnapping, Gwen never losses that sass or her impecable clothing sense. To help Gwen cope with her troubles she would turn to cookie dough. YES raw cookie dough. We have all enjoyed cookie dough or fresh baked cookies as a comfort at some point in our lives. I think that it brings us back to when we were kids and would help our moms in the kitchen. We all had to lick the bowls, did we not! Okay maybe it's just me =) Another comfort that Gwen had was frozen twix bars, which I never tried till I read this book and they were good. So this made me think what about frozen snickers bars and YUM. Thanks KA for making me more of a chocoholic.Anyways, back to the book. This book has it all. It has danger, suspense, romance, action and laugh out loud moments, along with amazingly hot, alpha males. Yes you heard me not just one but three alpha males. The other two alphas (Mitch and Tack) have books of their own in this Dream Man series. A surprise to me is also that Brock, Gwen's kidnapper, is also an alpha man who has his own book. I can't say I really saw him as alpha male material, but I am willing to see.This book grabs you from the start with Gwen and her Mystery Man". Gwen met her Mystery Man at a bar and spends the whole time flirting from afar. She brings him home to her house, after his only words to her "You coming or what" This begins the nighttime visits every few days or so. He always comes in the dead of night and is gone by morning. After a year and a half she still does not know his name, so she names him "Mystery Man". Gwen has reservations and struggles with her desires about letting MM into her bed night after night. But with their wild escapes and her multiple "O"s, who can blame her for letting him back in. It is not until she is drawn into her sister's (Ginger) troubles that she finds out his name. Of course she finds it out after getting herself on the radar of an alpha-hottie biker (Tack), in which she ranted about her sister and her Barbie dolls. Yup, you heard me right, Barbies. This moment in the book is hilarious, laugh out loud funny and the fun is only starting. Cabe "Hawk" Delgado (MM) is a swoon-worthy, possessive, arogant, bossy, alpha male who can be tender and likes to cuddle. He has dimples that would bring any woman to her knees. Hawk steps in to protect Gwen after multiple attempts are made on her life. Didn't I mention drive-bys, house fires, and kidnapping. There are also other situations that Gwen and her "sass" gets into. Along the way we meet alpha male Mitch, who wants desperately to make a play for Gwen, in addition to Tack and Hawk. We are glad that Mitch didn't make his move since we want to get to know him more, which we do in another book.The book can be repetitive at times, and the Hh relationship have their moments also. Aside from that the overwhelming testosterone, laugh out loud moments, action and tender moments make this a great book to escape from the everyday with. I find that a true marker of a good book is if you will read it again, and I will definitely be doing that, but first ON TO BOOK TWO!!!Ooh! Almost forget the epilogue is stellar, a wonderful way to end the book. Also some of the guys from Rock Chick have cameos!! So have to read them again.

I reviewed this book at MustReadBooksOrDie with my friend Shelley.Yes, girlfriend, Kristen Ashley is seriously one of my new favorite authors. I am sad that it took me so long to find her, but glad at the same time because there are so many books out already that I can devour! And yes, we haven't posted our giant Rock Chick series review yet because I am taking my time not finishing them because I am simply not ready to let those characters go, or I guess let go of experiencing it for the first time. Which brings us to the Dream Man series! I thought this would be the perfect go to so we could still be experiencing Kristen Ashley but I don't have to say goodbye, and let me just say shee-it, they are fantastic!P.S. There are several scenes that involve people we know and love from Rock Chick like Lee, Hank, Vance, and best of all Shirleen!1) The Writing. Is. Wonderful. Kristen brings in romance, steam, laughs, suspense, and more laughs. She pays special attention to detail, but doesn't make it wordy that would drag down the story and make it boring. I especially enjoy all these girls love of fashion even in the light of danger and chaos!2) The story. I texted Shelley like a mad woman when I read that Gwen had been letting this random guy visit her at night after meeting him once at a bar. Hold the phone, KA...what! An original idea, to say the least, but the practical part of me was still wondering where this chick's common sense was. When you meet Hawk, you figure that one out, but still she was dang lucky that he was a nice guy and not a serial killer! I also liked (and have confirmed this in book 2 and 3) that this series for KA has moved more toward a family driven dynamic and that has been fantastic!!3) Gwen. I loved Gwen. She shares my love and appreciation for cookie dough, so she is definitely okay in my book. She brings the fashion in this one with her love of LBD's that Shelley mentioned and Jimmy Choo's, and had me cracking up because only she would worry about this in a dangerous situation. Out of all of KA's heroines, I think Gwen is the most glamorous if you will, and she was fun. Her family, yes even including Ginger, was hysterical and real. I always am a sucker for good nicknames and MM doesn't disappoint with her calling Hawk and the guys commandos. The real kicker was even when she realized she wasn't going to get Hawk shaken off, she still tried to be closed off because of her past experiences. It made me sad for her that her ex was such a jerk and made her doubt a good man when she finds one. I was a little jealous of her for all of the attention of the male variety that she was getting not including Hawk!4) HAWK. Hawk is one of my absolute favorite heros from Kristen Ashley to date. About the time that he decides that he wants more with Gwen, she decides she is done, so he has to work a little harder to get her to see his side of things. He had me swooning all over the place by saying things like "For a year & a half, I missed out. Yep, I was missing out." Obviously for the sake of propriety that is the censored version, but having a smoking hot alpha commando decide that you are worth all of his attention and regrets that he waited so long makes my heart melt. And Shelley is right....their journey isn't an easy one. There are lots of ups and downs here, and like I said before family is the heart of this series, so don't be surprised if you shed a tear during this emotional rollercoaster. Hawk has secrets he's buried that made him Hawk and I found he is finding himself as much as Gwen learning to be herself.*curtsy* I am so glad that we went ahead and started this series! Right now I am having the dilemma that there is only one book in it out...but don't know how much longer I can hold out to finish both!

4/5 🌟🌟🌟🌟I really enjoyed Mystery Man by Kristen Ashley! I also lost a lot of sleep because I couldn't put it down. This was my first book by this author and she really did not dissapoint. This book is right up my alley but I put off reading it for so long due to some of the negative reviews I saw, and now that I've just finished it I'm kicking myself for waiting even a minute!The best way to sum up how I feel about Hawk is to say just.. yes.. yes, please. 😋 I'm a sucker for a possessive alpha hero and Hawk was that and then some. Tough as nails but gentle and thoughtful with Gwen. I also really loved her character as well. She was strong as hell, witty and sassy but also compassionate and loyal.I would have liked a bit more spice but all in all, it was *chef's kiss* 🤌🏼

I absolutely loved Cabe aka Hawk and Gwen...Though it took me a bit to warm up to Gwen. This book had lots of feels in it and I loved the chemistry between Hawk and Gwen. There was also lots of action and a few twists. I'm going to start reading the next book in this series right away!Great first book in the series! I'd say a definite read.

It was so good that i had to buy the paperback because i want yo have it in my bookshelf, 100% recomended. Read it NOW!

So much in this one book. I can’t believe that the author Kristen Ashley can write in so much detail and so many characters and they all have their own story and developed detail and yet I feel like I flew through this as it was so enjoyable to read. A wonderful story with all that is messy about love included. Love is full of messy feelings and they are all here. Thank you. A great read.

Início uma nova série da escritora e, é claro, não fico decepcionada!!! Fiquei com um pouco de raiva da heroína no início...ela parecia ser muito fraca... Mas me enganei. Só leva um tempo pra gostar dela. O herói tbm não parecia ser tão maravilhoso... Mas ele vai se tornando perfeito. Linda história, muito bem escrita, realista. E como foi bom rever os personagens de Rock Chick. Recomendo muito!!!

This is the first book in the Dream Man series and I recommend you read them in order. I started with Motorcycle Man (which I think is actually the last book) and found it hard to get my head around all the characters.Mystery Man aka Hawk is one hot Alpha Male (in fact there are a couple of other hot Alpha males in the book, so I was rather spoilt). Gwen is a laugh out loud typical KA heroine. Loved her. Therefore a good start and the book just got better and better. Yes, there were a few WTF? moments where things got a touch unrealistic (or perhaps not, I don't live in Denver so am hardly qualified to comment) however this did not detract from my overall experience because I read to escape. If I wanted real life I'd watch Sky News 24/7 and beat myself up. And if you restrict yourself to reading at 100 mph and not 350 mph, you will see that the characters are real, with pasts, issues, insecurities, faults just like us. These books, for all their hilarity, hot sex and incredible storylines, tend to have an honest, believable message underneath. I was drawn in very quickly and read into the night until I face-planted my Kindle.Therefore, all in all, a brilliant book, part of an addictive series (each of which can be read alone so you are not left teetering on a cliff-hanger for 7 months) and yet another example of a superb, and lucky for us, an extremely prolific, writer.One word of warning, this book actually mentions the Rock Chick series and at that point my heart sank a little. More KA books I would be unable to resist. I checked my bank account - would it have to be shoes or books? An unfair decision for any woman to make. So I made it quickly, I one-clicked on Wild Man and then went out a bought a pair of red shoes for comfort.