Musings on Romance
I’m over at AudioGals today with a review of Full Moon Rising by Keri Arthur, narrated by Tamara Lovatt-Smith. It wasn’t terribly successful but I mostly put that down to it being the abridged version. I think the full version would likely have made much more sense. Frankly, I think the abridgement broke the book.
Why I read it: I received a copy from the author.
What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Mal Ericson, drummer for the world famous rock band Stage Dive, needs to clean up his image fast—at least for a little while. Having a good girl on his arm should do the job just fine. Mal doesn’t plan on this temporary fix becoming permanent, but he didn’t count on finding the one right girl. Anne Rollins never thought she’d ever meet the rock god who plastered her teenage bedroom walls—especially not under these circumstances. Anne has money problems. Big ones. But being paid to play the pretend girlfriend to a wild life-of-the-party drummer couldn’t end well. No matter how hot he is. Or could it?
What worked for me (and what didn’t): The first book in this series, Lick, made my Favourites of 2013 list and not just because I had a “cameo” as a slutty (in the sex-positive way of course) groupie in it either. I think I liked Play a little better than Lick even though I ended up at the same grade. There was really only one thing that gave me pause in Play – and actually, I fully expect to see it worked out in future books of the series.
Why I read it: I was provided with a review copy by the author.
What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Maggie Hendricks loves her life. She’s got a great job, amazing friends. Everything is perfect – except for one smallish problem. Maggie can’t quite get there, sexually speaking. It’s just never happened for her. And while she tells herself she’s fine with that, she can’t help feeling as though she’s missing out.
When her friend shares the intimate details of an encounter with an extremely talented lover, Maggie makes a desperate pact with herself. She will seduce this man – or allow him to seduce her – and if he can’t get her there…well, then she’ll hand herself over to medical science. A simple enough plan. What could possible go wrong?
Within minutes of meeting Rafel Oliveira, Maggie knows the answer to that one: plenty. But Rafel turns out to be far more than simply talented in the bedroom. As he takes her on a journey toward the ultimate pleasure, Maggie finds herself craving a lot more than his beautiful body. The question is, is Rafel’s heart available for the taking?
What worked for me (and what didn’t): I liked this book very much. I’m going to have some criticisms (of course) but I want to say first up that I really enjoyed the book and would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes a spicy contemporary that is all about the relationship (no suspense, not secondary relationships; just the couple, getting together).
I liked Maggie very much – she’s strong, independent and clever. She runs a successful small business and she loves books (what’s not to like?). She had a believable reason for being anorgasmic (at least, to me) but her back story wasn’t played for sympathy votes. When she makes a plan to get herself an orgasm, she ovary’s-up and sets out to get it. One of her good friends, Cleo, had a sexy encounter with a “Brazilian hottie” named Eduardo at Brothers Ink. So Maggie quietly makes herself an appointment to get her some of that.
She couldn’t believe that she hadn’t thought of any of this before now. It was one thing to be preoccupied, but this was bordering on willful stupidity—especially when she took Cleo’s track record with men into account. Barring one rather dishy specimen, Maggie had never so much as glanced with envy at any of Cleo’s boyfriends. In fact, she and Cleo usually had diametrically opposed taste in men. For example, Cleo thought Ashton Kutcher was hot, whereas Maggie wanted to give him a good shave and send him to work for the UN Commission on the Status of Women for a couple of years.
I signed up for the AWWC 2013 challenge last year – I pledged to read and review at least 10 books by Australian Women Writers. I was pleased that it wasn’t even a particular effort – that is, I found there were books by Australian women writers that I wanted to read and I didn’t have to “force” myself to read something to meet my challenge commitments. Part of the reason I signed up was because I wasn’t sure how many books by Australians I was reading and I was curious to find out if it would be an effort or more of an organic thing. I was prepared for effort, but glad that it was more organic. There are amazing Australian women (romance) writers and I was happy to participate to highlight some of them and also to give a bit of a bump to genre romance within the challenge itself.
A full list of my challenge books and links to the reviews is after the jump.
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