contemporary

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.

How to Misbehave by Ruthie Knox

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

How to Misbehave (Novella)

Grade – A
Hotness Level – Blaze
Kink Level – None
Genre – Contemporary, novella
Series – Camelot #1
Reviewed by Anne

Innocent Amber is a manager at her town’s community center.  Bad boy Tony is managing construction of an addition to it.  Over the weeks Amber has nursed a crush on Tony and kept hoping to build up courage enough to even speak to him once.  Then there’s a tornado warning and just the two of them at the community center, and they need to take shelter, but the power’s out and they don’t have a flashlight, and it turns out Tony is afraid of the dark, and talking with Amber distracts him…

 And, wow, this was a good book!  It is a novella, so I don’t want to say too much, but it’s WELL worth the read and the 99c price tag.  Go buy this book now and enjoy it!

Star Crossed by Kele Moon

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

Star Crossed (Battered Hearts, #2)

Grade – A
Hotness Level – Inferno
Kink Level – None
Genre – Contemporary
Series – Battered Hearts #2
Reviewed by Anne
 


 
After reading Defying the Odds I went pretty much straight to Star Crossed.  I was a bit nervous.  I really liked the first story, so I wondered if the second would live up to it.  Well, no worries there – Star Crossed was awesome!  I liked it even better than Defying the Odds, and that’s saying a lot.
 
OK, character roll call.  We’ve got Jules (aka Juliet) who is a smart and confident small town lawyer in her 30s.  She’s very close to her twin brother, the Sherriff, Wyatt.  Jules also works part time at the dispatch center.  Together with their best friend and UFC Heavyweight champion, Clay, they own a large gym and training center in town. 
 
Clay just defended his title by defeating Romeo Wellings.  (Yes, Romeo and Juliet!)  Clay has come to like Romeo after the events that happened at the end of Defying the Odds.  However, Wyatt still sees Romeo as the enemy. (See!  Romeo and Juliet!)  Romeo is New York City slick, rumored to have mob connections, and no one that Wyatt wants around his sister.  He’s every bit as confident as Jules, to the point of being cocky.
 
Unbeknownst to everyone in Jules’ circle of friends, Jules and Romeo had a one night stand after the UFC fight.  That leads to a string of increasingly hot phone calls, text messages, and video chats between the two of them.  When Clay retires and offers to train Romeo, he accepts, knowing Clay will be a good trainer, he’ll be getting some space from his mob connections, and – most of all – he’ll be close to Jules.
 
Star Crossed picks up in time right where Defying the Odds left off.  An extremely hot phone sex call between Romeo and Jules makes their attraction very clear.  A lengthy flashback to their Vegas hookup fills in some blanks and we final jump to present day.  This is one extremely hot and dirty book. 
There are so many things I liked about it, it’s hard to pick one to start with.  I like to mark notes while I read on my ereader.  At the end of this reading I had 30 notes, and 25 of them are pretty much just me remarking how hot a scene is, how funny a comment was, or how much I love these characters.

Jules and Romeo work so well together.  Jules is so comfortable in her own skin and sexuality.  This is a trait that’s put other men off, but Romeo loves it.  Their chemistry is off the charts, even when they aren’t in the same room. 

Jules and Romeo are both very close to their brothers.  I thought those relationships were really realistic, and these characters were fun to hang out with.  The book is full of moments like this one:

“I’m sexy and I know it.”

Romeo looked to Tino, who was currently enjoying the benefits of satellite radio, and arched an eyebrow at his youngest brother.  “You’re officially banned from energy drinks and convenience-store doughnuts.”

Tino bounced his head, giving Romeo a wide smile, showing off even white teeth as he sang off-key.  “I work out.”

These funny moments come between the hot and dirty and raw ones.  Here are a few lines from one of Jules’ and Romeo’s over the phone meetings:

“Don’t encourage me…’cause it feels really good when it happens like this.  I like it.”

 “Yeah?”

 Jules panted. “Um, yeah, I do it like this when I got extra time and the house to myself…like tonight.”

“I’m gonna come,” Romeo admitted with a pained groan.  “I’m so fucking turned on I’m going blind from it.”

“Oh, do it.” Jules couldn’t keep the whimper of longing out of her voice.  “I wanna hear it.  Lemme hear you come thinking about me and listening to me finger fuck myself.”

“Shit!” Romeo shouted.  His breathing was harsh, making it obvious he’d given in and come.  “Fuck, Juliet!”

There were a few things I didn’t like in the book.  Wyatt was portrayed as this very responsible and mature man, but he made some really, really foolish choices that had big repercussions for Jules and Romeo.  It wasn’t totally out of character, though.  I’m not a huge fan of secret relationships, so Jules and Romeo’s down low status went on a bit too long for me.  I really don’t know much about the mafia, so I can’t speak to how realistic that part was.    

Overall, though, these were just small blips on an otherwise incredibly good book.  This one is certainly going on my best reads of the year list, and I’ll be looking at Kele Moon’s other books, too!