blaze

Suddenly You by Sarah Mayberry

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

Suddenly You

 

Grade-A-
Hotness Level-Blaze
Kink Level No Kink
Series-this is a sequel to another book, but it stood alone well
Reviewed by Anne

Generally I like really hot and explicit books.  But there are a few authors who I really enjoy and would probably read even if the book had little to no sex.  Sarah Mayberry is one of those authors.  Thankfully, Suddenly Yours is a wonderful contemporary romance that also has some wonderful sex!

Pippa is a single mom of a 6 month old baby girl.  Harry is a pierced and tattooed mechanic with a heart of gold, and best mate (friend) to Pippa’s ex.  When Harry finds Pippa stranded on the side of the road with a broken down car, it is just the first in a series of meetings that lead to Harry realizing how much his mate has abandoned Pippa.  He’s torn between loyalty to his best mate and wanting to help Pippa out.  And wanting to help Pippa out is further complicated by the fact that they are attracted to each other.  That’s a complication neither of them really want, but they can’t ignore, even if neither is sure the other feels it.  On top of that, Harry is a confirmed man-whore.  He doesn’t do commitment.  He knows this and Pippa knows it, too.  This story, with no real bad guys, is all about what they do with that attraction and how they handle the challenges life throws at them.

There were so many things I enjoyed about this story!  I love the Australian setting and the way the author and publisher *don’t* Americanize the book’s language.  I’m smart enough to figure out the slang and I enjoy it!  I thought the realities of being a single parent were well handled.  It’s messy.  Pippa isn’t suing her ex for child support out of bitterness or for revenge.  She’s doing it because she’s struggling to make ends meet and she wants to be able to feed her daughter.  Pippa also has a temper that gets her into some situations.  This didn’t feel like an author contrivance to create conflict.  It felt like Pippa was a real person who flew off the handle now and then, especially when feeling embarrassed.  She also has a tendency to blurt things out.  This leads to a few more embarrassing moments, but it never felt over the top to me.  It felt real.  Here’s a good example I bookmarked.  Harry is doing some work at Pippa’s house and he’s up on a ladder while she’s down below.  He’s just politely told her that a button came undone on her shirt and he can see down it.  She’s embarrassed but when she looks up she sees “an impressive bulge” in his jeans.  Her mind is whirling.  Is it possible that he’s attracted to her, too?  Is that all because he’d seen down her shirt?  She’s busy with her inner monologue, convincing herself it would be foolish to act on anything when…
 

“Good coffee, Thanks.” He stepped toward her, coffering her the empty mug.

Her gaze slid down his broad chest and flat belly to his crotch.

“Is that for me?” The words slipped out of their own accord, born of too many nights alone and bone-deep curiosity and need.

It had been so long, and she was only human.

Harry’s gaze tracked to hers to his groin. She held her breath, waiting for him to respond, aware of the pulse of desire between her legs.

A slow smile curled Harry’s lips. “This, you mean?”

Pippa watched with dawning horror as he reached into his pocket and drew out a tub of filler.

His smile grew into an outright grin, his eyes dancing with mischief and amusement. “I’m not sure whether to be flattered or intimidated, to be honest,” he said, eyeing the tube assessingly.

Pippa opened her mouth to say something to rescue herself but the only sound that came out was a small, choked cough. Heat flamed its way up her chest and into her face.

Harry was watching her, grin still in place, amused and entertained. IN a moment of blinding clarity, she saw herself through his eyes – frumpy single-mum Pippa, down on her luck, a bit quirky and needy in her pill-covered yoga pants and baggy old man’s shirt.

A million miles from the kind of woman that would inspire a hard-on the size of a tube of spackle.


This is why I love Sarah Mayberry’s writing. It’s so real!  Sometimes when you open your mouth you make an utter fool of yourself.  Mayberry captures that.  It’s a funny situation that makes me smile, and then ache at the same time, because you know how Pippa feels.  The book has a handful of moments like this.  (And don’t worry, Harry does reciprocate her feelings!  The embarrassment works out well for her.)

 There wasn’t much in the story that I didn’t like.  Alice, Pippa’s daughter, seemed to sleep a lot, but I’ll accept that in my fantasy read. Sometime’s Pippa’s ex seemed a little over the top, but it fit the story, so I’ll accept that, too. 

I highly recommend this book.  It was a wonderful feel good read.  Sarah Mayberry is a consistently good writer who I never regret spending money on.  I’ve still got some of her backlist to read through. Her latest newsletter mentioned that she’s going to self-publish some more stories (this, like almost all of Mayberry’s books, was published by Harlequin) and I look forward to them, too.

Like a Wolf with a Bone by Shelly Laurenston (Howl For It)

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

Howl For It (Includes: Pride, #0.5)
Grade-A
Hotness Level-Blaze
Kink Level-None
Series-Pride #0.5
Reviewed by Anne

(Note: I only read Laurenston’s story.)

So, I am a big Shelly Laurenston fan.  I’ve been reading her stuff for a while and I love it all.  It’s not often that you can say that about an author, but her stuff is ALL good to me.  It’s set in an alternate present day where shifters (that most full humans don’t know about) exist.  One of the things Laurenston does best with her shifters is bring their animal traits into their personalities and habits, whether in human or animal form.  She’s amazingly good! Her stories are  over the top funny and over the top violent, and I just don’t want to put them down when I start them!

I just finished the novella Like a Wolf with a Bone in the anthology Howl For It.  I need to take a moment and mention just how much I appreciate those title.   There’s some nice double entendre along with a nod to the shifterness of the story.  Awesome.

So Like a Wolf with a Bone is a prequel to the current stories.  It takes place in the 70s and there’s some humor to be had from the references that come up.  Darla and Eggie are the parents of one of the most recent heroines, DeeAnn.  Like a Dog with a Bone tells the story of their courtship.  There’s so much to enjoy!

Darla is attacked by a group of full humans.  Eggie manages to fend them off, and by fend them off, I mean that he easily and efficiently kills them all.  However, Darla is hurt and unconscious when Eggie is done with the humans.  Without a whole lot of thought to it, Eggie takes her away from her home – she wasn’t safe there! – and takes her to his military base hospital for treatment.  When Darla wakes up she assesses the situation and after some initial shock, she’s fine with Eggie having rescued her.  So, the conflict in this book doesn’t really come from the two of them together, but from everyone else in the story.  And while there is a lot of humor between Eggie and Darla, it’s the squads of secondary characters that really had me cracking up!

See, Darla has lots of sisters, and Eggie has lots of brothers.  And they are all dating each other.  Yep.  In the rural area I grew up in this wasn’t uncommon.  We used to joke about the family tree growing up, but not out.  Anyway, Darla and Eggie’s siblings have a lot to say about Darla and Eggie being together.  Actually, Darla’s sisters have a lot to say.  They do most of the talking.  And then there’s Eggie’s momma.  She may not know a pacifist from a polygamist, but she’s looking out for her boy.  It’s just all good!

This story was ridiculously funny and I enjoyed it from beginning to end.  I highly recommend it!  It’s probably best appreciated if you’ve read some of the other books in the series, especially the more recent ones where DeeAnn and Eggie are mentioned.

 

 

Shades Of Desire by Virna DePaul

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

 
 
Shades of Desire (SIG, #1)


 

Grade-C
Hotness Level-Blaze
Kink Level-None
Series-SIG #1
Reviewed by Kay

Natalie Jones is a photographer who has recently become legally blind. She has many personal issue she is trying to overcome. With trying to become accustomed to her loss of sight, she is also being stalked by a killer. That brings in Special Agent Liam “Mac” Mackenzie to handle the investigation that is the suspense part of this story.

The suspense part of the story was better than the romance part. I used to read strictly mystery/suspense years ago so I hoped to enjoy this story. I also am a big fan of romantic suspense. This story had a lot of sexual tension but when it came time to close the deal so to speak, it was almost boring. There was explicit language and scene description but I just couldn’t connect with the characters by that time. It was too far into the book(over 250 pages) for me. I expect more from a contemporary romantic suspense novel. I hate to say it but I won’t be reading anything by this author which is sad because when it is done right, romantic suspense is a personal favorite genre of mine.