Anne

Rough Ride by Keri Ford

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne
Rough Ride (The Roughnecks, #1)
Grade – B
Hotness Level – Blaze
Kink Level – No Kink
Genre – Contemporary
Series – The Roughnecks #1
Reviewed by Anne
 
Gretchen is a young widow who owns a trailer park.  Lane is back in town to help his brothers fix up some property and is renting a trailer from Gretchen.  He’s been really clear about his short term status. He’s not staying in town and he’s not looking for a relationship.  Despite this, sparks fly between him and Gretchen. 
 
However, Lane is keeping a secret (cue drama) from his brothers.  (By the way, he’s one of set of unidentical, but all handsome, triplet brothers, with a younger brother to boot.) This big secret makes him want to keep his distance from his brothers, hence his plans to leave town as soon as renovations to the property are done.  He knows Gretchen is a forever kind of girl, so he’s not going to go anywhere near her.  Except when he does.  Which is kind of a lot.
 
Meanwhile, Gretchen decides, with the help of her two best and very funny friends, that it’s time to have a no strings attached affair.  She needs to seduce Lane.  Except she really has no idea how.  So she sets out baking a lot.  She tries to explain this to her friends.

“They say the quickest way to a man is through his stomach.”
 
“That’s to his heart, Gretchen. I know it’s been a while, but what you’re looking for is a bit farther south.”

 
This book really worked for me.  It’s got over the top humor, and I was really in the mood for that.  It reminded me of the Neighbor From Hell Series by R.L. Mathewson.  Funny and cute.  As with the Neighbor From Hell series, food plays a big part in this story.  In this case, Gretchen really has a thing for pie.  Here Lane is asking her about pie:

“What are the options?”

“Cherry?  Lemon, lime, banana, coconut cream?”  She looked down, her lips twisted and she bit at her lower one.  “Um, sweet potato.  Pumpkin, oh my god, I can’t wait for fall so I can make fresh pumpkin pie.  It’s just creamy and sweet.  Spiced like Christmas and smooth like cheesecake.  Flavor just pops in your mouth.”

Lane’s tongue was thick in his mouth for reasons that had nothing to do with hunger for pie.  Her eyes glazed as she went on about different kinds of pies and their “full bodied” tastes.

“Oh yeah.  And the cheesecakes.”  Her lips were parted, cheeks pinked and eyes a little dreamy.  “They have this stuff in the store.  Premade cheesecake pie filling and it’s awesome.  I’ll eat it off the spoon like a pudding cup.”

There was a good chance she just had an orgasm on his couch talking about pie.

 
I really enjoyed Lane’s brothers and Gretchen’s friends, too.  Unfortunately, Lane’s big secret seemed dumb to me.  I also thought the last few chapters of the story were weak, probably because the drama didn’t really work for me. Overall, though, I enjoyed it and I’m putting the sequels, Rough Play and Rough Tumble, on my To Be Read list.


Be Mine

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

Be Mine: Sizzle\Too Fast to Fall\Alone With You
Grade – B-

Hotness Level – Blaze
Kink Level – no kink
Genre – Contemporary
Reviewed by Anne
 
Sizzle by Jennifer Crusie
Grade C+
Emily is a successful marketing guru who makes a lot of money for the company she works for, but is also known for running over budget on her accounts.  Richard is brought in to partner with her and keep the financial side of her accounts in line.  They are immediately attacted to each other, but Richard’s habit of not listening to Emily, during professional or personal moments, has Emily on her guard professionally and keeping her distance personally.  Richard seems clueless as to his… shall I call them bad habits? 
I had some problems with this story that kept it from being a better read for me.  There were moments where Richard was so oblivious to what Emily was saying that it bordered on non-consent (sexually) for me.  It never was rape or even close, but there were moments it was uncomfortable for me to read.  Partway through the story a reference to renting a VCR took me back to my childhood and made me realize this was an old story.  That was disappointing for me.
I did really enjoy the banter back and forth between Richard and Emily, and I really liked Emily’s strength of character.  She really liked Richard, but she wasn’t going to allow him to NOT listen to her. Her insistence on his improvement made his deplorable behavior tolerable.  It’s difficult to believe he’s really changed his ways at the end of the story, but I do believe Emily will continue to put him in his place.
 
Too Fast To Fall by Victoria Dahl
Grade B+
Jenny Stone has a need.  A need for speed.  And that need for speed keeps getting her pulled over by Deputy Nate Hendricks.  I have to admit that this is true for me:
Victoria Dahl + police officer = win
Jenny and Nate have some really nice chemistry together.  There is a lot going on in this short story, but I think Victoria Dahl pulled it off nicely.  Jenny was a nice mix of self confident and dealing with past issues that have given her a tendency to run.  I loved Nate’s honestly with Jenny.  Things that could have been hidden and created BIG SECRETS were not.  They were dealt with, and it was messy, but not annoying like a big misunderstanding is.  Add in some good secondary characters and this story was a big win for me.
 
Alone With You by Shannon Stacey
Grade B-
Jake and Darcy have a one night stand they both think will develop into something more, until Jake loses Darcy’s number and she thinks he never meant to call her at all.  This makes things quite awkward when they end up working together on an isolated project for a mutual friend/employer.    This story gets bonus points from me for being the only one that really had a strong Valentine’s Day collection.  I expected that from all three stories in a collection called “Be Mine” but really only Alone With You had more than a token reference.
 
This story had the things I love about Shannon Stacey’s writing, but it was kind of a miss for me.  There was a running joke (Big Ass Steak) and Kowalskis (Kevin and Beth from the second book) and funny and true good friends.  I really enjoyed Jake and Darcy playing trivia, too.  But I think the two of them together didn’t always feel right.  It felt a little rushed and a little up and down.  They’re not getting along.  They’ve got horny pants.  They’re in love.  It’s over! Oh no! But they’re in love!  Ok, back together with the horny pants.  In the end it was just ok for me.
 
 
 
 

All He Ever Dreamed by Shannon Stacey

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

All He Ever Dreamed (Kowalski Family, #6)

Grade – C+
Hotness Level – Blaze
Kink Level – None
Genre – Contemporary
Series – Kowalski Family #6
Reviewed by Anne 

The Kowalski books are some of my all time favorites.  They are a family I love to hang out with.  This book is my least favorite of the series, though.  I’ve been thinking about why that is, and I think it was very realistic (relationships are complicated and messy) and therefore had less escapism than I like.  Let me give you the set up.

Josh is the youngest in the Kowalski family, and he got left running the family lodge when all of his siblings left town and found other careers and adventures.  He’s always wanted to get out and travel and have a chance to do something else, even if he doesn’t have a certain something in mind.

Katie is his best friend and is nearly family, as her mother helped raise the Kowalski kids.  They’ve known each other forever, and she’s loved Josh as long as she can remember.  She doesn’t let him know about this, as she’s afraid she’ll lose him as a friend. 

This story takes place during a period of time where the Kowalski family has finally realized that Josh may not want to run the lodge and needs a chance to get out of town.  At the same time, he’s finally seeing Katie as a woman, not just his best friend.  But getting out of town and being with Katie long term seem unlikely to happen together, because she’s firmly rooted in their small town with no desire to leave.  So what will happen?

I’ll tell you what will happen.  I will come to dislike Josh because getting out of town is his primary concern.  He doesn’t hide this.  Katie always knows it.  So it overshadows their whole relationship.  And it leaves me wishing she would dump him because he’s unable to conceive of a way to be with her and to travel. 

Don’t get me wrong, I was very sympathetic to Josh.  Shannon Stacey did a really good job in writing him.  I understood he wasn’t just being an asshole, that he really needed a chance to spread his wings outside their small town.  He sacrificed his own desires to keep the family business and tradition going for a long time.  He didn’t hate the business, but he hated that he never had a choice about leaving.  However, I think Ms. Stacey did such a good job writing his character that the resolution for the story left me with some doubts about how it would all work out.  I was screaming in my head (and in my reader notes) for compromise while I read, and I felt like I never got it.

The book does have plenty of Kowalski funny moments, and I never wanted to stop reading,  I think it was just a little painfully real to me.