contemporary

Glory, Glory and Snowbound With the Bodyguard Reviews

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

Today’s review is for a double edition Kate got to review from NetGalley.  This review contains two books:  Glory, Glory by Linda Lael Miller and Snowbound With the Bodyguard by Carla Cassidy.  The two books contain 416 pages together. Please make sure you read down to the second review, because it is so much better than the first book!

 
Glory, Glory: Snowbound with the Bodyguard
Glory, Glory by Linda Lael Miller
Grade: D
Hotness Level: Blaze
Kink Level: No Kink
Genre: Contemporary
Published: 10/1/13 (Glory, Glory originally copyrighted in 1990)
Reviewed by Kate
 
Glory is returning to her hometown for her mother’s wedding.  10 years ago, she was blackmailed into leaving town without telling her boyfriend Jesse that she was pregnant and giving the little baby girl up for adoption (please tell me you see where this is going).  That’s right.  The first time Glory sees Jesse’s orphaned niece (who was adopted by Jesse’s older brother) she just knows that it’s her little girl-the little girl Liza looks just like a picture of Glory’s great-grandma. 
 
There is so much that I wanted to like about this book.  I love secret baby books and I had such high hopes.  Sadly, this one came off more as a soap opera than a romance.  Why, you ask? 
 

Signs this book may really be a soap opera:
  1. No one questions Glory’s claim that Liza is her daughter, everyone believes her.  There are no blood tests and no one searches the adoption records.  Glory confronts Jesse (who, remember, didn’t even know about the pregnancy), blaming him from keeping Liza from her all these years.  And while confused, even he believes her,
  2. Jesse is a border-line cheater.  He tells his girlfriend that they need to slow things down a bit (and rumor has it he had already bought a ring for her) then proceeded to come on to Glory later than night.  When Glory doesn’t give in right away (can you believe she actually had some backbone?) he makes a date for a few days later.  He’s also the king of “I know you said ‘stop’ but we both know what you really want.”  Oh, and he doesn’t officially break up with his girlfriend until after he’s slept with Glory,
  3. Glory decides that leaving again may be what’s actually best for little Liza, but manages to get a few shags in with Jesse on the way out of town.  No one finds time for nookie quite like a soap opera.  And finally,
  4. Jesse and Glory are finally brought together because Liza asked her dead parents (Jesse’s brother and sister-in-law) to make it happen.

 
I struggled to rate this book.  It was pretty terrible as far as romances go, but I actually found so much of it to be really funny (although I don’t think it was written with that intent).  Unfortunately, I think fans of secret babies and fans for Miller’s more recent books will be disappointed in this book.
 
***
Snowbound With the Bodyguard by Carla Cassidy
Grade: B
Hotness Level: Blaze
Kink Level: No Kink
Genre: Contemporary
Published: 10/1/13 (Snowbound with the Bodygurard originally published in 2008)

Reviewed by Kate

 
Janette was raped by the town sheriff and had little Sammy as a result.  The sheriff hasn’t paid any attention to her since the attack, until he hears she had a little boy.  Now he wants his son.  Janette takes Sammy and runs, but gets stuck in a small town in the middle of a huge snowstorm.  With no place left to turn, she heads to the only place with a light on-West Protection Agency.  Dalton West has been protecting his heart by closing himself off to everything but work.  Janette threatens to crack the shell he’s built around his heart, but he has no choice but to offer her a place to ride out the storm-both outside and in her personal life.
 
Strong, gruff, and at times abrupt, Dalton was the perfect counterpart to sweet determined Janette.  Add a scumbag of a villain and just enough suspense to keep me up late at night turning pages and you have yourself a solid, well written romance.  Although this is the first book I’ve read by Carla Cassidy, it definitely will not be my last!

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Cosmo Red-Hot Reads Week: Everything You Need to Know by HelenKay Dimon

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

This is day 4, the final day of our Cosmo Red-Hot Reads Week.  (Note: we here at Dirty Girls’ Good Books generally make an effort to only review books that you can buy RIGHT NOW.  We’re making an exception this week, putting up some early reviews of Red-Hot Reads.)
Everything You Need to Know
Grade: A
Hotness Level: Blaze
Kink Level: No Kink
Genre: Contemporary, novella
Published: 10/15/13

Reviewed by Kate
105 pages


Jordan owns a website that shares the nitty-gritty about all the bachelors and playboys of our nation’s capital with all the single women looking for love. Forest is the owner of a large company, and more importantly, a mystery. Nobody knows anything about him or his love life (past or present). So for Jordan, it started out with a good healthy dose of attraction with the excuse of getting the down low for her website. For Forest, it started out as a challenge and quickly became something a lot more. But while Forest is beginning to think things might be getting serious, Jordan’s running in the opposite direction. She’s terrified that her instant attraction and need for Forest means she’s turning into her man-eater mother.

Flirty, sexy fun from beginning to end.  The perfect balance between all things good in romance.  Strong, determined alpha. Independent, intelligent woman.  Their budding relationship was sweet and tender.  Their chemistry was hot, hot, hot!  A must-read for fans of HelenKay Dimon or anyone who hasn’t tried her yet!

Cosmo Red-Hot Reads Week: Naked Sushi by Jina Bacarr

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

This is day 3 of our Cosmo Red-Hot Reads Week.  (Note: we here at Dirty Girls’ Good Books generally make an effort to only review books that you can buy RIGHT NOW.  We’re making an exception this week, putting up some early reviews of Red-Hot Reads.)
Naked Sushi
Grade: D-
Hotness Level: Blaze
Kink Level: Mild Kink
Genre: Contemporary, novella

Published: 10/15/13
Reviewed by Kate
 
Pepper gets caught after a little copy room nookie and is fired.  The stranger in the copy room manages to get away.  Turns out Steve, the stranger and nookie partner extraordinaire, is an FBI agent trying to dig up info on Pepper’s ex-boss.  Pepper’s always wanted to be a spy, so she decides to help Steve out.
 
This book boggled me on so many levels.  Pepper walks in and catches Steve trying to make copies of some of her boss’s documents and he decides the only way to avoid having his cover blown is copy machine sex?  I can think of a few other options myself, but I guess since he had a bad case of the I’ve gotta have her nows I’ll give him a little leeway.  I can forgive his little bit of unprofessionalism.  But it just keeps happening throughout the book.  They just can’t keep their hands off each other, no matter what’s going on at the time.  Temporarily stuck in a storage room while you wait for the bad guys to leave?  Cue the tacky porn music…
 
Pepper is supposedly this nerdy girl who wears glasses and flannel shirts all the time and knows nothing about sexuality but one look at Steve and she’s suddenly this smoking hot siren.  She was ditzy, flaky, and quickly became annoying.  And let’s not forget that Pepper’s always wanted to be a spy, so she becomes Steve’s little shadow.  But honestly she’s following him around more for his magic fingers than his spy know-how.
 
This story’s one saving grace was that it was short.