Fear is a major suck! That is what I learned about At Any Price by Brenna Aubrey. This is the first installment in a three part series. The story is about Emilia (Mia) a gaming blogger that is disenfranchised with her virginity. Mia has a number of things going on in her life and not the least of which is her need to cover costs for the completion of her medical training. The thing is that she is beyond broke as are most of us. She gets the brilliant idea to auction off her virginity to the highest bidder by way of her blog. By her way of thinking this should be a pretty easy transaction with the right kind of planning and with Heath in her corner she feels pretty confident that she has all the bases covered. The thing is she actually doesn't and when Adam Drake enters the picture he wastes no time in pointing out the obvious flaws in her plan to her. Through a series of misunderstandings Mia learns way more about herself than she was willing to and the fear that results out of it is starting to cripple her. I have to admit, I was skeptical about her line of thinking myself so I was pleasantly surprised that she was as stubborn as she was. She is a strong woman, literally as her name would imply. She has weathered a number of huge life hurdles in her life, and each time she used the experience to erect a new wall/castle/mote around her heart. So for her to find it again, she has to dig deeper than she ever has before. The story is really entertaining because there are Mia's life issues that she is trying to learn to live with and deal with and then there are the faults that she finds in Adam that he wasn't even aware existed before she called him on it. What makes their love story memorable is that its honest. Its the kind of story that could literally happen to anyone. It felt like a really natural progression for the depth of their discoveries even in spite of the fact that they were brought together by a set of 'sick' circumstances. The thing that I think readers will take away from it just the same is that when you feel completely paralyzed by fear, the only way to overcome it is to face it head on and learn to trust that everything can work out; even if it doesn't work out according to your own plans. The story is filled with lots of fun characters and some really interesting places throughout California. There of course are also the blogging and gaming elements that were much appreciated. I am pretty confident that if you are looking for an unusual romance that will steal your heart just a little bit then you will definitely enjoy At Any Price. Out of 5 stars I am giving this one 4. Happy Reading !!!! Between the heroine being a geeky gamer and the crazy but unique setup, I couldn't put this book down until I was about halfway through. But when I did put it down and picked it back up, the book seemed to lose some of its fire. The hero was so awesome at the beginning...but then he became mainstream romance fodder. It ended up not being bad, but also not being as awesome as the beginning promised.
