The Lumberfox by Ava Lovelace – B+ I picked this one up when it was free on promotion and for various reasons I was looking for something short to read so I opened it. Despite the title, it is not a shifter book.  It is a quite delightful erotic short.  It retails for 99c but I think it’s well worth the money. Geek girl Tara is out in what proves to be a blizzard buying her first vibrator.  I was amused she christened her new toy Han Solo because, (wait for it):

“he was cocky and looked like he was going to shoot first.”

I’ve never even seen snow let alone been in a blizzard, but apparently what one does in such situations is leave one’s car on the road until the blizzard ends.  When she is (gently) rear-ended by Ryon’s jeep, he gets out of his vehicle to exchange information with her and from there, in a mostly believable way, she ends up in Ryon’s apartment to wait out the blizzard – both of their cars as well as everyone else’s it seems, will wait on the road until the weather is better.

There is immediate chemistry between Tara and Ryon but consent issues are important to both and Ryon gives her a safeword – anytime she wants to call a halt, she only needs to say “Wookiee”.  Little things like that Tara made Ryon call her mother and give her his driver’s license number for safety made it easy to relax into the story and the humour really worked for me. Ryon (let’s get this over with – his name annoyed me.  Why not just Ryan? I was calling him Ry-ONN in my head the whole book. It was irritating.)… anyway, Ryon is a baker and brewer and has the fortunate surname of Brubaker so I guess his course was set from birth (heh) – he makes a wonderful dinner for Tara and they also share slow hot sex and fast hot sex (in an elevator no less) and in between they talk to each other and find out they have a lot in common – and not just science fiction love. In fact, Ryon shows himself to be both a tender, respectful and inventive lover who is not afraid to get an assist from Han Solo.

The story is told from Tara’s POV but Ryon is delightfully open so the reader has a fair idea of his thoughts.

“So, Mr. Lumberfox. Etymology revs your engine, huh?”

“No, but smart girls who know what etymology is do.”

It’s a light-hearted, sexy, fun story.  Given it’s length, it has an appropriate hopeful ending but there is no declaration of undying love or anything.  While I think the Star Wars puns may have tired in a longer novel, I remained amused throughout the 35 pages of it.

The boy was truly a Jedi on the streets and a Sith in the sheets.

If I weren’t happily married Ryon (even with his silly name) might just make it worth getting caught in a blizzard. Cute, geeky fun. I recommend.

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Reviews of these books will be up soon at AudioGals.