Two and a half stars.

Landon McGee is a tech-whiz and owner of BKNY Games. A former foster child he still lives close to his adoptive mother and his two foster brothers - both of whom have also achieved outstanding things - in Brooklyn. He enters his high-tech offices one morning to find that he has been robbed. But the robbery seems 'odd', the thief stole two servers but left numerous expensive laptops and other tempting items behind.

Daphne Rossi is the detective assigned to Landon's case. The only daughter, with four older brothers, of an Italian family her close family is the antithesis of everything Landon had growing up, until his adoptive mother Louisa took him and his brothers in. She and Landon are surprised to find out that both being locals they have never run into each other before, although Landon went to school with one of Daphne's brothers.

Daphne and Landon are deeply attracted to one another but it isn't easy when she is also investigating the robbery, especially when her investigations focus on Landon's birth mother and threats made by another woman to his adoptive mother, stirring up Landon's deep-seated issues about both women.

As someone else said in their review, this started off really well but, in my opinion went downhill after the first quarter. At the start, the book had an [author:A.J. Pine|7845968] Kingston Ale House kind of vibe which I quite liked but then it sank into rather childish behaviour from the hero and, frankly, doormat tendencies from the heroine. Both of them seemed to use sex to avoid talking and Daphne's mother was just plain annoying, I wanted to slap her upside her head. As an aside do Italian women get offended by the way that they are always portrayed as interfering and backwards in the way they view women? I know my eyes roll every time yet another Italian momma starts making meatballs and telling their highly successful daughters that they need to do X or Y to catch a man, or making them cook and clean while their father and brothers loll around watching TV or play football. And now I've gone off on a tangential rant.

Anyway, if a character instils strong emotion in the reader he/she has clearly been well-written, but generally I wanted to tell Daphne to grow a pair, tell Landon to shut the *$!& up, tell Daphne's best friend that Daphne's brother was a man-child and that she should stop telling Daphne what to do when (in my opinion) she was completely wrong, and tell Daphne's mother to put a sock in it and join the twenty-first century. Daphne's dad didn't do anything to me!

Overall, this was all about the emotions, how Landon felt about his two mothers, how his childhood had shaped his behaviour etc. That wasn't the book I was expecting and it wasn't for me.

This was a cute read. Full of fun characters and twists ands turns that will keep readers engaged and rooting for the couple to have their happy ending.

I generally am able to zip through a romance book rather quickly. I requested this book because the publicist sent me an ema, saying that it was good. However, after getting 40% through the story, I just couldn't stand it anymore. The pacing was so slow and the narrative so repetitious that I almost pulled out my hair. I read further along than I normally would any other book hoping that it would pick up and grab me. After a while, I just lost interest.

So sorry I cannot give this book a better review. It just wasn't meant to be for me.

I enjoyed this story, at times the attraction between the H&h just wasn't there for me and the story fell a bit flat in places because of it. That being said this was a well written story and an enjoyable quick read.

Daphne is a great detective. She ask a lot of questions. Problem is some questions are ones that you should leave alone. Landon is surprised that he had not met Daphne before his office was broken into. They each know so many of the same people, that's another problem. They all think that they have a right to give relationship advice. It made for a light, funny read.

This is the first book I have read by this author and its second in the series. It seems to stand alone nicely. The main story features Landon, a computer geek who also got adopted by the lady running for mayor and he has 3 adopted brothers. Each story in this series follows a different brother. The story is about his relationship with Daphne, a cop with a cop family and who he meets as she investigates a robbery at his business.

The two charcters are really sweet together and I felt their attraction. I really enjoyed the fact that their families have also known each other a long time and yet they had never met because of their 5 years difference in age. I loved the authors writing style and she really created a wonderful story about two outsiders finding each other and falling hard for the other.

I thought ‘Just Once’ started quite well, though the pace and the plot went somewhat awry after the first quarter. The blurb however, doesn’t quite describe what the story really is: an attraction that blooms the moment Detective Daphne Rossi begins to investigate a break-in at an upcoming tech maven’s firm (which neither really denies), though it didn’t seem as though Daphne was asking Landon to play the boyfriend (now, wouldn’t that be unethical?) at all. Instead, the book reads like a simple case of an office break-in, but to get to the bottom of it apparently is a long, winding journey that cracks open family history and pulls every other secondary character in the periphery into the mix of things.

But it’s difficult to recommend a story when I’ve got a huge number of mixed feelings about it. I liked Landon and Daphne mostly, though their individual blow-ups at times felt a tad bit dramatic for me and the progress of their relationship itself isn’t too unpredictable though most of how they got on as filled with, well, filler.

Perhaps what got to me most were the multiple POVs and the introduction of so many strings—that weren’t tied up—which made the story all the more frustrating because the roundabout route it took for Daphne and Landon to get to their HEA felt like a plot-device deliberately intended to complicate rather than resolve. There’s some kind of short-lived investigation into the psyches of other potential relationships that were setup but left hanging, the continuing story of some weird revenge-plot for a quarter-century-old affair and the fact that every character seemed to vie for attention whether intentionally or not.

By the end of it, I was only marginally interested in the rest of the hanging strings (which, presumably and hopefully, will be tied up in the next installment of the series), though weary to the bone because I just didn’t know what my attention was supposed to be focused on for most of the book.

Another winner in the series of the Bronx brothers Nick, Landon and Fender and their adopted mother Louisa. Ms Fox has cornered the market on just how to perfectly pull on the heartstrings so that the reader is able to experience exactly what the characters are experiencing.

After the first book in the series where Nick and Emma's find their HEA, the story returns to bring Landon and Daphne together. The superb writing captures perfectly the sufferings of a little boy, Landon, at the neglect by his drugged out mother, and how, after being adopted along with two other boys, Nick and Fender, through a foundation of love and nurturing by their adopted mother Louisa, Landon finds his own happiness and love in Detective Daphne Rossi.

Even though this is the second book in the series, it can be read as a stand alone because the backstory is layered throughout the book in such a way to bring in Nick and Emma's story, without detractions, or creating any confusion. There is the perfect amount of humor, romance, tension and a robbery mystery to whet the appetite of just about any reader. You'll find yourself immersed in Daphne's solving of the robbery, as well becoming evolved with the attraction between she and Landon.

Hopefully the next book will bring Fender and Harlow together, and we'll find out if Daphne is promoted into the Terrorist Taskforce. The one thing I wish this story could have tied up before its ending.

This book was provided by the Publisher and Netgalley, I am voluntarily providing my honest review.