Frigid by J Lynn

I quite enjoy a bit of new adult (I know, I’m on the old side to be a ‘new’ adult!), and J Lynn, who also writes as Jennifer L Armentrout has great reviews so I thought I’d give one of her stories a try. Frigid is about two friends, Kyler and Sydney. They are a somewhat mismatched set of friends but they’ve been best buddies for years.

‘Actually, we went together like a lion and a gimpy gazelle that had no chance of outrunning the predator. I was the gimpy gazelle.’

When they met Kyler was a boy from a trailer park and Sydney was the sweet little girl who befriended him. Over the years Kyler’s family succeeded in their business and are now very wealthy but in his head he is still trash and she is still too good for him.

‘Sydney Bell had always been, and would always be, a few pedestals too high for me.’

Kyler is a bit of a man whore, never having relationships but a succession of one night stands. Sydney on the other hand is very inexperienced. She had one boyfriend a few years ago, who labelled her ‘frigid’, which she found very hurtful. All potential boyfriends since then have been chased off by Kyler, who is insanely protective over her. Of course, it doesn’t help her romantic life that she’s been in love with him for years.

‘No one could replace me in his life. I knew that. I was the friend who knew everything about him and whom he trusted and whom he trusted above everyone else. 
I was Kyler’s best friend.
And because of that, he would never love me the way I loved him.’

Every year Kyler has a group of friends over to his mum’s ski lodge for some skiing. This year, Kyler and Sydney will be driving together, and their friends will follow. However, the mother of all storms hits, leaving them stranded together, unable to leave, with a lot of misunderstanding and mutual attraction between them. To add to the tension, somebody is carrying out some attacks on the property and they are not sure who or why.

I found this to be some very easy reading, and I gobbled it up in just a few hours.  I always enjoy the friends secretly in love trope, I’m not attractive enough for him/She deserves better scenario, and I enjoyed this. Sydney is a funny girl, a real over-thinker, a quality I can identify with. Kyler was generally a bit selfish and thoughtless but he genuinely cared for Sydney which was nice. If you prefer to avoid sex scenes you probably wouldn’t be reading New Adult genre, but just to warn you there are several.

The downside of this book for me was the attacks; I didn’t feel either of them, particularly Sydney, took the attacks on them very seriously which didn’t make sense to me as they could have led to serious injury. Some of the actions that Sydney took once she knew there was danger present reminded me of one of those horror films where the TSTL (Too Stupid To Live) girl makes decisions that are devoid of all sense. For me, this would have been a better book without this aspect to the story as it didn’t add the tension that it could have if the characters had reacted to it differently, so it just got in the way.

However, this was a nice easy read, and the next time I’m in a reading slump I’d definitely consider reading another J Lynn book.