Tag: virgin heroine

Review: Too Beautiful to Break

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tl;dr: too little explanation for character hangups

The Story:

The fourth and final book in the Romancing the Clarksons series, Too Beautiful To Break, finally gives us the romance between Belmont and Sage, a relationship that’s been simmering since book one, so obviously, I was looking forward to it.

But I was a little disappointed by this book. I felt like a lot of the trials in the previous books were handled better, but in this one, Belmont and Sage both have mental anguish and hang-ups that aren’t clearly defined in ways that make sense.

Let’s start with Belmont. He had a horrible event happen to him when he was young, where he spent several days at the bottom of an abandoned well. Belmont closes himself off from his family, and more specifically his younger brother, because of this. The reasons for why he feels like he has to do this make sense, but what doesn’t track is why Sage of all people can magically cure his anxious episodes. Aside from her being slight and pretty and somewhat dainty, she doesn’t seem to have a specific thing that makes him calmer. I also feel like Belmont’s general “I hate change” phobia doesn’t make as much sense as his apparent and understandable claustrophobia.

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Review: Heat

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tl;dr: save yourself some pain and stay far away from this garbage fire

The Story:

I picked up this book because I got a publisher email. If you’ll recall, I also reviewed the author’s last release, A Fare To Remember. I didn’t think it could honestly get worse than that one. I figured it would be a quick read, a few laughs, and then I’d write a review that was essentially a rehashing of the last.

This book was so much worse than the one before it. I don’t even want to review it. First, the review copy that they sent me was barely readable. The formatting was awful and random words and numbers were inserted throughout the book. I had the worst time following it because of those things. And not only that, but the story itself was the most bored I’ve ever been while reading erotica. The prose was infantile and awful. The characters were worse than paper dolls.

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Review: The Wedding Date Bargain

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tl;dr: sweet and sexy chemistry overrides the few technical faults

The story:

When reading the title of a book, a reader generally has some expectations about what’s to follow. But when it comes to this book, toss them. I have no idea why the book is titled ‘The Wedding Date Bargain’. The wedding is a 3 page non-event, and I don’t even know where the bargain comes from.

This is the actual story: college friends Max and Sarah reconnect after 8 years, and then reconnect AGAIN one week later. Sarah has always had the hots for Max, and the feeling is mutual. She threw herself at him in college, but apparently he has a White Knight complex and refused to tarnish her virtue, so they spend 8 years mooning over the one that got away. When Sarah ends up working for his friend Sean’s chain of hotels, she AGAIN tries to seduce him and he AGAIN says he can’t be the guy to pop her cherry, because it would give her the wrong impression or something. But when Sarah agrees, and decides she’ll find someone else to fix her ‘problem’, Max goes 110% caveman and offers himself as tribute, because he can’t stand the idea of anyone else touching her.

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Review: Off The Clock

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tl;dr: two sex therapists that have a lot to learn about love

The Story:

I don’t normally read back-of-the-book blurbs, but in this case, I did. It seemed interesting enough, and so I checked it out from the library, mostly because the blurb to the follow-up book, By The Hour, looked even more intriguing. Unfortunately, the library didn’t have that book, so, wary to purchase a book without knowing if I would like the author’s style, I borrowed this one first. And I’m so glad that I did, for a variety of reasons, least of which is that the most interesting part of the story was a complete surprise.

The first few chapters are a bit of an extended prologue where we get to know Marin and Donovan. Donovan is a doctoral student working on his thesis about aural methods of female arousal, by recording himself dictating fantasies that are supposed to be coming from the female gaze, or at least, more arousing for women than pornography, which tends to work better for men. After a week of working together on the scripts for the audio recordings, Marin and Donovan have passion sex on one of the desks in the lab. Marin doesn’t give him her real name, and she doesn’t even plan to see him again, ever. Due to a family crisis, she ends up dropping out of school and thinks that she’ll never see him again…

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Review: Master Professor

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tl;dr: fascinating setting for drawn out forbidden romantic tension

THE STORY:

There was already plenty of buzz about this book by the time I got my hands on it. And for good reason. The premise is titillating and unique, and has a forbidden romance that promises lots of sexytimes. Andie Lincoln has decided to get submissive training at an exclusive BDSM school, which is so exclusive that there are only ten spots for students. Her Hollywood boyfriend had to pull strings to get her in. Of course, her professor is sexy as all get out and things heat up between them fast.

Under his tutelage, she begins to learn a lot about herself and what she actually wants. Her initial questions are answered (yes, being a submissive works for her, really really works), and she begins to question whether or not her Hollywood boyfriend is really the man for her, after all.

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