on Paper/eBook
**NB this review first appeared in the September ARRA members newsletter and at the ARRA blog on #**
What a Girl Wants by Selena Robins - C- Maddie Saunders is a daredevil travel reporter who decides she needs a “sexual boot camp” and she’s nominated her best friend Alex Donovan to be her “Sergeant”.
Alex is one of those reporters who goes into war zones and writes about the serious issues.
When they are both sent on assignment to Hawaii (I should be so lucky) Maddie decides her time has come.
I don’t know a lot about reporting but it seemed odd to me that Maddie and Alex were to spend weeks on the (fictional) island of Makana for their story – Alex was to interview reclusive billionaire Maxwell Hollister and Maddie was to take in the tourism spots. It seemed like a long time spend on an assignment.
I was expecting a fun, flirty, friends-to-lovers story and at the beginning, that’s exactly what it was. Except that Alex turned Maddie down quite a few times and she came off as desperate and a bit pathetic after a while. Just when she’d decided to bow out gracefully, Alex decides that resisting temptation isn’t worth it and they begin to steam up the sheets. I found the sexual euphemisms somewhat surprising, considering this is a book from Samhain, a publisher very comfortable with the erotic. Would a man really refer to his penis as “my hardness”? Some of the terminology made me roll my eyes. I would have preferred the characters “call a spade a spade” but YMMV.
Maddie is also searching for the identity of her father – her mother has never told her who he is so she’s hired a private investigator to find out for her. For much of the book it appears that the mysterious Maxwell Hollister is Maddie’s father (I won’t spoil it by telling you whether that’s true or not). There’s also Maddie’s attempt to reconnect with her flighty mother, her relationship with Alex and something about a former IRA getaway driver. If that’s not busy enough, add in that Alex has accepted a position in London (and wants Maddie to move with him), an ex-girlfriend with a grudge and a BMX accident for good measure.
I did like that Maddie had very good reasons for not wanting to drop everything and follow Alex to London and the way it was eventually resolved.
Alex and Maddie certainly had chemistry but I was ultimately a little confused about what the book was trying to be – chick lit or a sexy contemporary romance. But, if you like contemporaries with a hearty dash of women’s fiction, this might be a book for you.
Master Class by Rachel Haimowitz - C After a smallish cameo by Devon and Nicky in
Power Play: Awakening, I was curious to read their story. I already had
SUBlime on my TBR having won it in a blog giveaway a while back but I wanted to start at number 1, so I went and bought
Master Class. At only 55 pages, it is a quick read. Unfortunately, the characterisation you can savor in a 290 page book such as either of the
Power Play books cannot be found in anywhere the same degree in a novella. I found myself dissatisfied because I didn't get to know either character well enough. I wanted to. I found both men fascinating and as with the
Power Play books, I liked the writing style. But it was really just the beginning of their story and there seemed a lot more to tell. Nicky is a Broadway actor/singer and submissive/masochist who has come from money and feels guilty for things having come so easily to him. Devon is a big time movie star and Dom/sadist but we really learn very little about him. In fact, I felt I knew them better from their scenes in
Power Play.
SUBlime - Collected Shorts (Master Class #2) by Rachel Haimowitz - C/C- This is a short (45 pages) collection of even shorter "scenes". Many of the scenes felt incomplete in that they sometimes stop in the middle of the action. There were, for me, hints of character growth, but only hints. While the stories themselves were interesting and well written, they didn't satisfy my craving to get to know these two men better. The grades for these 2 stories reflect that I'm a romance reader first and foremost and the emotional depth was a bit lacking for me here. I'd happily read a full story about them - I know they are married by the time the events of
Power Play occur and I know that they don't live "the lifestyle" 24/7 but I don't know really how that works (at least for them) and I don't know how Nicky's career fits in (in
Awakening he said that Devon
"let him out" to play occasionally - I thought that meant Nicky doesn't work much?) and I don't know how they came to get married. I would love to read that story.
Mystery Man by Kristen Ashley - B/B+ I have recently discovered the
reading crack* that is Kristen Ashley.
Her writing is not for everyone.
There are very long run-on sentences (some of which don’t make sense),
some abuse of tenses and apostrophes… but.
But. The stories are strong and
if you like the alpha protector type who likes dirty talk and laugh out loud
funny heroines (and heroes for that matter), an authentic girl posse who drinks
cosmopolitans and eat cookie dough and other fattening things, this might be
for you.
