Note: Spoilers ahoy
Quiet Man by Kristen Ashley – C/C- I was keen to read Lottie’s story – she’s Jet’s sister (Jet was the heroine in Rock Chick Rescue) and was on the periphery of the Rock Chick group for most of the series. Lottie is the headliner stripper at Smithies and my favourite of the Rock Chick books, hands down, is about another headliner at Smithies – Daisy (Rock Chick Reawakening) so I was keen to see Lottie get her HEA and to revisit the crowd at the fictional strip club in Denver.

One of the things I most loved about Daisy’s book was that Marcus wasn’t bothered by her being a stripper and loved her, breast implants and all, without question and without any reservation. I was hoping for a similar experience in Quiet Man. Unfortunately, Mo was a bit judgey about stripping and it made me a little uncomfortable. They worked it out and Lottie continued to do what she wanted to do but I would have preferred more cheering and less reluctant agreement.

What else? I feel I speak fluent Kristen Ashley but there were sentences in this novella which made zero sense no matter how many times I read them. There were times I could get the gist but other times remained a mystery. There were also numerous typos. The novella really needed better editing.

Lottie has breast implants and is described in the book (often) as having “fantastic tits”. Which, awesome. But I noted that Mo had no interaction with her breasts in any of their sex scenes, with mouth, tongue or hands, until after she had had the implants removed later in the book (her choice, nothing to do with Mo), apart from admiring them while they were boning. So, when Lottie was feeling a bit uncertain about what he thought of her breasts at the reduced size and he only then got busy it jarred and made me a little uncomfortable. Perhaps I’m overthinking.

Lottie was fantastic. She had sass and confidence and went after what she wanted while also being kind and generous.

“And I don’t want Tiffany’s, Mo. If I did, I’d earn the money to buy something there. I doubt you’re on food stamps working for Hawk, but I also make a good living and if a woman’s about the living a man can earn, she’s not much of a woman. I need a man with ambition and drive and a belief in what he’s doing. I don’t need a man to drive me to Tiffany’s. I got my own damned car.”

Mo was not terrible but he wasn’t my favourite of KA’s heroes either for the reasons mentioned above. Hat tip also to the scenes where the Hot Bunch or the Dream Men (mark II) were in the room – their banter was hilarious.

TL;DR I didn’t hate it but it wasn’t the best book and I had some problems with some of the representation and the editing.

BUY IT:
AMAZON

Reviews of these books will be up soon at AudioGals.