Art gallery curator Joy Montgomery has never liked her body’s generous curves. And she’s always been too shy to explore her wild side. But tonight, everything is going to change . . . Desperate to save her job, Joy approaches bad-boy artist Ash Hunter and asks him to exhibit his erotic work at her gallery. Ash agrees on one condition: Joy must pose as his model. But business soon turns to pleasure, as Joy experiences a passion beyond her wildest imaginings and Ash finds more than just inspiration in his voluptuous new muse.

Dare to Surrender by Lilli Feisty
Erotic Contemporary Romance
February 1, 2010
Paperback, 352 Pages
Forever
Reviewed by Mandi

I read my first Lilli Feisty book a few months ago, Bound to Please with Ruby and Mark St. Crow and fell in love. I enjoy the way she writes a great relationship, yet still includes lots of dirty smut. Dare to Surrender delivers, and even though Ash is not quite as dominant as Mark, he still has a heroine who submits and delivers lots of naughty spankings.

Joy Montgomery needs an up and coming artist for the gallery she works for. She knows just the edgy one too – Ash Hunter. Ash’s specialty is bondage photographs and Joy needs him to keep her job. Problem is, he is not taking pictures anymore. She sees him at a fundraiser held at the San Francisco Art Museum and they strike up a conversation. He eventually takes her to a back room to show her his private collection of sculptures. Joy is amazed at his work. It is not only provocative and beautiful, but it is just what her gallery needs for a boost but Ash doesn’t want it shown. Ash leaves, and Joy has a spontaneous idea. She steals one small sculpture, not really having a plan as to what she is going to do with it. After taking it, she realizes she made a big mistake, but it is not so easy to just return it – especially as Ash and Joy become more intimate, she doesn’t want her theft to ruin what they have.

Joy is disheveled, loses things all the time and never seems to pick the right outfit out of her closet. She has not had a good track record with men, and her last boyfriend pretty much used and discarded her.

Ash likes everything neat and tidy. Although he is a very talented artist, Ash has a lot of responsibilities, including a paraplegic sister. He feels responsible for her care and although he feels his life needs to be constantly on the move, he takes a security detail side job offered by his former army buddies. He feels the need to be more mature, so he decides to give up his art. That is until he meets Joy. He is attracted to this woman, and when he sees her become very turned on by a bondage sculpture he created, he can’t help but feel the lust between them and the urge to start taking pictures again.

Dare to Surrender makes my smutty heart melt a bit. Joy really steals the show for me. She is mature and good natured, yet so loopy and disorganized. She curses all the time and belly dances in secret. She is also a “curvy” heroine and I love about her. We do not get enough of that type of woman in books and it works so well in this story. She has been told all her life she is overweight and she wears frumpy clothes as a result. But Ash knows how to turn those insecurities around. She learns that she has a beautiful body and when she looks at the photographs Ash takes of her, she can’t believe that is the real Joy.

Ash is quite the opposite with his rigid rules, but that makes their relationship that much more fun. Joy’s messy life endears her to Ash and he never once tries to change who she is. The sex in this book is smokin’ as only Lilli Feisty can write. Ash likes to tie up his women, but the bondage scenes are very light in this book. Joy gets a good spanking when she is naughty – and she is naughty more than once. There are two particular scenes in this book that have already made it onto my favorite sex list for 2010. For those that have read it – chapter eight and thirteen. So naughty, and so sensual.

The only thing that nagged me in the story is after she steals his sculpture she has about a zillion different opportunities to come clean and tell him and she never does. She keeps telling herself she will, yet they end up having sex or something else comes up and after awhile it gets a little old.

Dare to Surrender is an erotic, smutty yet very romantic love story. Lilli Feisty writes great characters that stick with you and stories that are so much fun to read you have to call your girlfriends to chat about it. I’m ready for more.

Rating: 4/5

Recent Reviews:
Fiction Vixen – 5/5
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