Rating: 3.75 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novel


Sophie is ready to study art history at Nottingham University and she finds herself sharing a house with not one, but two charming men. There is wealthy, gorgeous Alex, who has his choice of bed partners, but wants Sophie more than anyone. Alex is content to wait, but he didn’t figure that their other roommate, Jasper, is also looking toward Sophie.

The three roommates become great friends and Alex and Jasper couldn’t be more different. Jasper is grieving a personal loss and finds comfort in the friendship of his roommates and safety in Sophie’s bed. Alex had all the advantages growing up in a wealthy family and being deaf has not deterred him from getting what he wants. Both men want Sophie and Sophie is faced with an impossible choice.

Coming Together starts the Johnson Road trilogy involving Sophie, Alex, and Jasper and their home on Johnson Road. The story introduces us to all three characters and we get three points of view that are easy to distinguish, although the book mostly feels like Sophie’s story.

Sophie came from boarding school and was tired of living in a dorm. She was then paired up with Alex and Jasper in an off-campus house. This was described as housing that was still part of the school and I wasn’t sure how realistic it was for there to be co-ed roommates assigned. For many reasons, the book read as someone’s fantasy come to life. Sophie is beautiful and has two gorgeous men, one who is extremely wealthy, fall in love with her quickly. The men become the best of friends and they tolerate, to a point, the other’s relationship with Sophie. Alex also is a player and has many bed partners, and Sophie is okay with that, also to a point, as she wasn’t ready to commit to Alex at first.

I liked the overall story that was being told here and I liked all three characters. I did feel that I had to read through a lot to get to the heart of the story. There are many passages of Sophie’s art history studies and I didn’t feel it added that much to their story. Also, there were times were there was a lot more tell than show. The interactions, especially between Sophie and Alex, were minimal and then they were in love with each other. There are stretches of time that pass in retrospect, such as school breaks and Alex and Jasper spending time on vacation, that we are only told about in passing. And, the men are fairly rational about the whole thing and splitting their time with Sophie while becoming the closest of friends themselves.

Sophie does get to know each of the men before becoming making full on commitments and becoming fully intimate and the author did show how it was difficult for Sophie to choose as both men filled a need. Alex and Jasper also find a spark between them, which really throws Jasper as he has never been attracted to a man, and that part of the story is still developing. There was also more going on with Jasper’s family history and Alex being the sole heir to a fortune and why he was at the college to begin with was questioned but never answered. Then, there was a stalker plot added in, which also worked against the focus of the story for me, as well as side characters that still added more to the story going off in different directions.

When I think of this book, however, I liked the parts with Sophie, Alex, and Jasper and their overall story. There are two more books in the series and by the end of this one, I was caught up enough in their story to be interested in how it will all play out.