Amanda's review posted on Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews 
 Review copy provided for an honest review 
 5 STARS 
 Before Jamaica Lane by Samantha Young had everything I liked from an author in one book. She created a story of love and friendship, heartache and insecurities, and best of all growth for two very deserving people. She has continued her theme of a flawed and likeable heroine with real emotions and a journey she goes on to get what she so richly deserved; her one true love. 
 The story describes Olivia Holloway starting over in Edinburgh, wanting to have more from life, but needs a little help from her good friend Nate Sawyer. Nate won't allow himself to get close to another woman and has been classified as a manwhore to avoid entanglements. Olivia spent so much of her adolescent years taking care of her dying mother that the years that she should have been out exploring life and men, has left her painfully shy and very inexperienced with the opposite sex. Olivia wants to be able to ask a man out she's secretly admired, so she asks Nate to help her with lessons in the art of flirtation and seduction. 
 Young wrote some very sexy lessons and you know that Olivia can't stop her heart from getting involved. There were some very tender and emotional scenes, in which honesty came out that brought them closer together. They allowed another person to see something about themselves that no one else knew about. Young delves into Olivia's psyche and shows some very real emotions that aren't easy to express but gets down to the core of the problem. Olivia grew over the arc of the story and figured out what she wanted and wasn't going to settle. She took a chance and it paid off in the end for her and Nate. 
 I absolutely love Young's writing style. She transitions from present to the past with ease. She writes raw emotions that had me crying a few times in this story because it was heartache on paper. Both her main characters have lost someone significant to cancer and have left them both scarred. 
 I have to say that Before Jamaica Lane makes a wonderful addition to the On Dublin Street series because she's done it again. Taken a flawed heroine and teamed them with a man who can help her become a better person with their love and support. And in this case the hero Nate also did some growing as well to see where his life is going. I'm glad that she continues to bring in the other characters from the previous books and continue their stories in the present book. I have a soft spot in my heart for Edinburgh and remember the names and places she writes about in her stories. You can read this story as a stand-alone but I sure hope you don't. They all are well written and stay with you long after you put it down. Her next book will be Hannah and Marco's story coming out in June called Fall from India Place and I can't wait for 2014.