Ravings of the Semi-Lucid

Title: Coming in Last
Author: Shiloh Walker
Genre: Contemporary erotic romance
Grade: B
Reason for Reading: From her comments on the blogs I read, I think Shiloh is full of awesome and win. But the couple of short stories I've read by her left me cold so I thought I'd try a longer work.

Synopsis: Jamie McAdams expected it to be an open and shut case of embezzlement. The finger
seemed to be pointed right at Andi Morrow, the quiet young lady who ran the daycare
center at his godfather's plant. Of course, she didn't exactly have access to the
cash, but she did live seriously outside her means.
Andi smelled like vanilla, tasted like sex, and moved like sin. It only took a few
days for Jamie to realize he was hooked, and she was being framed. But maybe he should
have told her that, before they used her as bait to catch the real embezzler.
Jamie always gets his man, even if it means coming in last with the woman he's fallen
in love with.


My Thoughts: Man, I gotta say, I loved this synopsis. No breathless purple prose, a sexy enough description, and what's more, it's accurate. Which is good, because if I can copy and paste something good, I'd much rather do that.

Anyway, I enjoyed this book. Andi and Jamie are nice, likeable people with real issues. And y'all know how I feel about strong heroines. Andi was wonderful here. She'd had a rough life, but she wasn't a walking neurosis, and her trust issues felt genuine.

Jamie also struck me as a real guy that one might find outside a romance novel. He was fun, witty, and pursued Andi relentlessly without swerving into "me Tarzan. You Jane" territory.

The plot? Well, it's light. You pretty much know who the villain is early on, and it's not very hard to guess what's going to happen. But I wasn't bored, since Ms. Walker did such a great job with her characters. I was rooting for them, and wanted everything to be all right.

Oh, also, I have to say that it was refreshing to see that there were consequences for Andi to her being investigated. There were real repercussions to the work that Jamie was doing, and the resultant chaos in Andi's career was left open-ended. Which is nice, because in this case I think had Ms. Wlker tied that little plot thread up with a bow I'd have been less impressed.

If I have any quibbles, it's that the villain is of the cardboard, moustache-twirling, "I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids!" brand. Which made the suspenceful climax, well, just a bit less so since I couldn't take him seriously.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and I will be reading more full-length stories by Ms. Walker. Because sometimes you need literary popcorn--something light, but filling and oh so good.

Title: A Wish, A Kiss, A Dream
Authors: Shiloh Walker, Mary Wine, and Lorra Leigh
Genre: Erotic romance
Reason for Reading: I think I got this because someone told me I'd like Shiloh Walker.
Grade: C-

I've had a pretty good reading month thus far, but it was bound not to last.

( This is how much I suffered )

I read a lot while I was gone, since I didn't have the Internet to distract me during my downtime. I'll see if I can remember everything.
( Click for the list )

I think those are all the books I actually finished. At the moment, I'm in the middle of several other books.

Oh, and I have to mention that a couple of ebook authors made it onto my never read list again:

• Jordan Summers: Her stories are about five close female friends who all stupidly go off to the jungle for haut smexing. I never made it to the hot smexing part, because I couldn't get past the fact that the heroine of the first book freely admitted she knew nothing about the outdoors, yet was happily galavanting around the jungle.
  
  
• Charlotte Boyett Compo: In the book of hers I tried, her male character refers to a woman's secretions as tasting like boiled potatoes... which took me out of the story and made me collapse into hysterical laughter for a long time. Seriously... WTF, boiled potatoes? Not romantic.