Crossing the Line by Megan Hart
Released: June 17, 2014
Erotic Contemporary Novella
Harlequin
Reviewed by Mandi
Crossing the Line is a male boss/female employee romance, except with a twist. In this situation Caite, the employee is the dominate while Jamison, the boss, learns he likes the submissive role. But let me back up for a moment. Caite has worked at the PR firm, Wolfe and Baron for about eight months. Specializing in social media, Caite has impressed her one boss Elise Baron, but Jamison Wolfe has been too busy to really know what is going on at his firm. When Elise goes on an early maternity leave, Caite offers to take the lead on a big new client – three reality television stars who are unruly party-goers. Jamison is very uncertain as to whether Caite can manage this account, but she takes charge both with the account, and with pursuing her boss.
First, I’m usually not a huge fan of the female dominant, but I think it works well in this one. At first I thought Jamison was going to be so in control, and the one to pursue, but the author flips it around. Caite is the one in charge. She tells Jamison exactly what to do, and it surprises him how much he needs this. How much he needs the direction and the loss of command. I could feel that in him, stirring around.
But but but – while I could feel it brewing, I needed more time for it to all settle. This is the second Cosmo Red Hot read I’ve read recently where I’ve liked where the story is going but it’s like the author ran out of pages to finish telling the story. So much more could have been explored here. I think Jamison is on a path to fully accepting the submissive role, but I needed more time with him. I would have also loved to get more of their backgrounds, and friends and family and all that stuff that goes into making a character have lots of depth. I think in the 80 pages, this author makes it work fairly well, and I know that is how many pages this publisher gives you to write – but I was left wanting at the end of the book.
What we get intrigued me, I just wanted a little more.
Rating: B-
Megan Hart is an auto-buy for me. I bought this a few days ago & will be reading it soon; I just have to finish off the new monster Diana Gabaldon book first!
I’m generally liking the Cosmo Red Hot Reads, but I agree that the length of them hasn’t always suited some of the titles. I would have loved to have seen the Lauren Dane one, both of the Sarah Morgans, and the Cara McKenna one expanded, even though all of those stories were good – I just wanted more in them! Sylvia Day’s entries to the line got around that problem by being a two-parter of a single story; hopefully some of the other authors will have the chance to do this with future Cosmos RHR releases.
Yeah – they have a good set-up I just want mooooore.
On a better note, I’m reading a the upcoming full length Sarah Morgan Book, Suddenly One Summer, and it’s so good. Yay for full length stories. LOL
I agree with you both! I have been reading SO many good books lately…Tessa Bailey, Meg Maguire/Cara McKenna, Anne Calhoun, and Joey Hill’s new e-serial Naughty Bits, among others. And it always seems like I’m left a little unsatisfied with how short they are. I have no problem paying for books regardless of length. That’s not the issue. I just feel as if the stories are akin to a summer fling instead of a long term relationship. They wrap up too fast.