Grade: B-
Hotness Level: Inferno
Kink Level: Moderate Kink (BDSM)
Genre: ContemporarySeries: The Science of Temptation #1
Reviewed by Kate
121 pages
On Anne’s recommendation, I read the Seduction Hypothesis. (See Anne’s review here.)When I finished I had to go back and read Ivan and Cami’s story. I wasn’t too far into The Theory of Attraction before I realized I had read it before (evidently my poor memory could benefit from some sort of “books read” system as this is no where near the first time this has happened to me.) As I continued to read, I remembered how much I had enjoyed reading it the first time around.
Ivan is a man of routine and predictability. In the time Camilla has been his neighbor, she has learned his routines and fallen for him a little bit, even though they are just computer game playing, sci-fi watching friends. When Ivan needs to charm some bigwigs at an upcoming party he turns to Cami. Perhaps she can help him get past his awkward social presence. Cami jumps at the chance to help him (and spend more time with him) but gets more than she bargained for when she realizes there’s one thing about predictable Ivan she didn’t know — he’s a Dom.
I really like that this wasn’t a book about changing Ivan. Cami helps him understand the situations he’ll encounter at the party, but he doesn’t undergo a nerd-to-jock transformation. He remains himself. He continues his experiment on growing tomatoes, despite his his dislike for tomatoes. He still has a hangup about shower hanky panky (my favorite scene in the book.) And on the path to helping Ivan, Cami learns about herself too.
A strong start to a great series. Delphine Dryden has done for nerdiness what butter did for toast — made it yummy and scrumptious.
contemporary
Toy Box by Delphine Dryden
Grade: B
Hotness Level: Inferno
Kink Level: Moderate Kink (BDSM, D/s)
Genre: Contemporary
Reviewed by Kate
Toy Box by Delphine Dryden
48 pages
I really enjoyed Dryden’s recent nerd romance stories, so I thought I’d try some of her backlist.
Rafe and Lauren started their relationship as Dom/sub, but everything turned vanilla when their first child arrived. Now the kids are spending the weekend with the grandparents and Rafe decides it’s time to step into his Dom role once more.
Ahhhh. I love a good husband and wife reuniting story and I really liked that there wasn’t any real conflict in this short (such as overcoming infidelity). It was all about them connecting with their Dom/sub relationship again. I highly recommend this quick read.
Chasing Mrs. Right by Katee Robert
Grade-C+
Hotness Level-Blaze
Kink Level-None
Series-Come Undone #2
Reviewed by Kay
Let me start by saying that I did not read the first book in the series, so I don’t know if that would have made any difference. I felt that the book was okay as a stand alone novel.
Ian Wasler is a soldier recently discharged from the Army. He had seen a lot of very unpleasant things in his tours and wants to get back to normal. The problem is he can’t figure out how to do that. He can’t sleep well or relate to his family. His PTSD is stifling to him. His sister throws him a welcome home party and he can’t take the crowd so he runs out the side door and plows into a beautiful brunette.
Roxanne Stokes is said beautiful brunette and was going to attend her best friend’s brother’s welcome home party. Instead she’s on top of some guy who came barreling out the door she was going to enter. As a party planner she has to deal with a great many different types of people and she can see this guy has issues. These two people have an instant attraction and there you have it. She fights the attraction for various reasons, the least of which is that she figures out who he is after their tryst.
I liked this read a lot. The characters were good people with really crappy pasts. Each had family issues that were difficult and caused problems for them both. The push and pull between these two was fun and exciting to read about. It was a little slow in the middle, maybe, but still enjoyable. Let’s not forget the love scenes, they were nice as well.
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