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Too Hot to Handle by Victoria Dahl

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

Too Hot to Handle (Jackson, #2)
Grade – B
Hotness Level – Blaze
Kink Level – no kink
Genre – Contemporary
Series – Jackson #1
Reviewed by Anne

Merry has been a tumbleweed through life, but she’s finally putting down roots and showing her family and friends she can be a success.  She’s gotten a job as curator of a ghost town.  She’s going to develop it and turn it into a tourist attraction.  Shane lives across the hall from Merry.  He has ties to the ghost town that Merry doesn’t know about.  In fact, he is contesting a will that has direct effect on the ghost town.  Merry knows he does carpentry work and asks him to do some restoration work in the ghost town.  Shane accepts the job, thinking he can get a little inside information on the committee opposing him in the lawsuit about the will.  When he starts feeling attracted to Merry, his deception weighs on him, but not quiet enough for him to come clean.

I usually don’t like this kind of set up.  I’m not a fan of BIG SECRETS.  And I was initially annoyed at this one.  However, the farther I got into the story, the more believable it got.  Shane tells himself, just a little while longer.  With every passing day you know the revelation of the big secret will be even more painful, but I found myself rooting for them to stay in the lie just a little longer, because they were so good for each other and I knew the truth would rip them apart.  So I understood why Shane kept the secret.  In the end, I felt like his grovel and apology were fitting for the hurt he caused and I was ok with everything.
 
Other than the BIG SECRET, I really have nothing to complain about. I loved Shane and Merry’s chemistry.  Victoria Dahl is such a fun and funny writer!  There were so many stand out scenes in this book.  The shower scene, the hidden vibrator scene, all the moments between Merry and Grace were delightful, too.  I really enjoy a book where the characters have real friends.  Raylene at the bar was a hoot!  
 
This is the second book in the Jackson series.  I haven’t read the first book and I followed this one just fine.  I’m going to read the first one, though, because Grace was such a good friend to Merry and such a strong woman that I want to know more about her.  This is a wonderful book and I highly recommend it!  Dahl is back on my favorite writers list.

Rocky Mountain Heat by Vivian Arend

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

Rocky Mountain Heat (Six Pack Ranch, #1)
Grade-C
Hotness Level-Inferno
Kink Level-None
Series- Six Pack Ranch #1
Reviewed by Kay

Blake Coleman is the first born of a family of modern day cowboys. He lives at the Six Pack Ranch with the rest of his family. He  takes the responsibilities of ranch life very seriously. Jaxi is the girl next door. She has grown up with the Coleman boys. She has loved Blake for as long as she can remember but he has ignored her at every turn.

These two characters dance around each other and their feelings until one night Jaxi pushes Blake just a little too far. It starts off a domino effect that includes members of his family, from his parents to his brothers.

This started of sweet and engaging but toward the middle I had to force myself to finish the book. I am a huge Lorelei James fan and I wanted this to be like that, I think. This isn’t bad but just felt a little long and it lost me for awhile. I don’t think I’ll continue the series though.

Covert Seduction by Callie Croix

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

Covert Seduction
Grade-C
Hotness Level-Inferno
Kink Level-None
Genre-Romantic Suspense
Reviewed by Kay

Reid Galvin is a Navy SEAL on leave after a horrible mission and all he wants is to see Becca Anderson. They had a situation before he was deployed and it carried on through his deployment. He has decided how he feels about her and wants to set matters right.

Becca Anderson is an employee at an investment firm who decrypted a file for a co-worker recently that was quite a shock. She loves Reid but has a hard time with his job and where their relationship stands. Reid calls her to set up a time for them to talk things out and interrupts her on a date that really isn’t one.

David told Becca that on the file she decrypted that some one embezzled money from the firm. Big money, like two billion dollars big. He gives her a copy of the information on a zip drive. She’s very scared about all this as she should be but agrees to wait until David has found out everything and everyone involved before they go to the authorities.

On the way home from the fundraiser they are ran off the road by another car and into a deep canal. They are trapped upside down inside the car with water seeping in from a crack in the back windshield. Meanwhile, Reid decides to wait for Becca at her house to come home after her date and happens upon the accident scene. He jumps in to rescue whoever is trapped, having no idea it’s Becca.

He rescues them both and then takes Becca back to her apartment to take care of her. The next day, she gets a phone message from David saying someone has broken in and ransacked his home. She then hears someone attack David and the line goes dead. She at that point tells Reid. At the same time downstairs, a man breaks into her house. Reid chases down the man and holds him until the police come.

Reid takes Becca to his friend’s beach house where they stay until the police wrap everything up, which they do quite quickly. They both admit they love each other and are willing to work on their relationship. In the epilogue, they are happily married.

This was just an okay read for me. It was plenty hot enough and that was done well. There was a couple of things that didn’t ring true for me, such as, Reid and Becca having sex in front of a picture window where the neighbors could and did see her. Also, Becca made a comment about tying him up at her mercy. The book describes how dominant he is and how he’s held back in their encounters in the past, so I don’t see him allowing himself to be tied up. Nor do I by into an alpha male allowing anyone to see the woman they want to marry, naked. Those for whatever reason were an issue for me. The rescue scene with the car trapped in the canal was pretty good but again, just an okay read for me.