I had every intention of writing this last week in time for Valentine’s Day, but I didn’t. But even though that day has passed, I still want to tell you about the Valentine’s Day novellas I read. Apparently I only read in themes/sets of three now. Next week I will have a round-up of a trio of Cowboy books :)
Anyway, back to this week.
First Up- Just One More by Jodie Slaughter. I REALLY wanted to love this story. I really enjoyed White Whiskey Bargain last year. The cover of this is great. I felt confident that Slaughter would deliver a sexy novella centered around Valentine’s Day. Nothing really happened. The heroine and hero meet in a ride-share and they spend the weekend together. It was cute that they went shopping for towels at Target and had good sex. But I needed them to be doing something. The story felt like it was lacking internal struggle/conflict and I never really saw what the love interests saw in each other. After the initial sexual attraction, I wanted them to dig deeper and show me below the surface. I got to about 65% and decided it wasn’t for me. I will definitely try again with Slaughter in the future.
Next Up- Candy Hearts by Erin Mclellan. I saw some peeps talking about this on Twitter. It was available in my underutilized KU membership so I figured I would give it a try. This book was an absolute treat. It was funny and super sexy. McLellan did a great job of showing me the internal internal struggles of the heroes and depicting more than just their physical attraction.
The heroes enter in a mini-fake relationship and there is some forced proximity thrown in for fun! Benji is a mechanic who likes to wear lingerie. William is a workaholic. They both think their pairing shouldn’t work, but it does.
Here’s a quote from the story-
“I don’t think I’d want you to top me like a machine. I’d want you to top me like a living, breathing human. You’re beautiful and amazing, and I’m so thankful I’ve met this version of you. The real one. I only want you to be the real you with me.”
I liked this story so much I read McLellan’s Christmas novella, Stocking Stuffers. It was just as sexy. I recommend both.
Closing out the Valentine’s Day novellas was A Big Surprise for Valentine’s Day by Jackie Lau. I had heard that this book features a hero with an extra large penis and that the first time the hero and heroine have sex, it isn’t perfect. Non-perfect sex is an almost auto buy for me. But this story let me down. The story was a bit boring and it felt like there was too much telling instead of showing. Once again I felt like the author wasn’t giving me enough to believe in the reasons why these characters might like each other for more than kind of boring sex (ie- the sex scenes were short, not very descriptive, and relied too heavily on his large penis). I opted to DNF.
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