Format: E-book
Opens with: Amazon Kindle
Length: Novel
Genre: Contemporary Erotic Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Loose Id
Hero: Shawn Griffin
Heroine: Rachel Cooper
Sensuality: 4.5
Date of Publication: February 15, 2011
Started On: February 15, 2011
Finished On: February 15, 2011

I was so very psyched to wake up this morning to see Cari’s message on Twitter that she was sending over a copy of Insatiable, her debut novel on LooseID for review. Add to this the fact that this one is of my favorite theme/trope where friends turn into lovers coupled with the fact that today is a state holiday over here, I was in book heaven right from the very first moment I loaded this book onto my Kindle and entered Rachel and Shawn’s world where they both made me practically insatiable to learn everything about them and to reach their happily ever after.

30 year old Shawn Griffin is an esteemed architect and the only child of the Griffins who own an architecture firm known throughout the West Coast. Born and bred in Calvin Bay of California, Shawn is blessed with surfer good looks, feline green eyes and golden hair from his mother and a laser-like focus and intensity from his CEO father. Shawn’s only regret in life is the fact that he had turned down his best friend’s proposal that they become intimate when she had been 16 years old and curiosity had taken a hold of her that in turn had driven her into another man’s arms. Shawn is a man who is biding his time for the right moment to woo the love of his life into his arms forever, a man who has been infatuated with his childhood friend and best buddy since forever and been in love with her for at least half a dozen years.

28 year old Rachel Cooper is the youngest child of the Coopers who publish the magazine for tony fashionistas in the West Coast. A middle school music teacher, Rachel had met Shawn minutes after entering into this world, thanks to the lifelong friendship between their families. Shawn had become her best girlfriend, regardless of the fact he is a guy, long before she had even realized that being his best friend was what she wanted. Apart from the one time when she had been 16 years old and had found feelings of an alien kind inhabiting her body whenever she had been around Shawn, Rachel had never considered opening up her heart to Shawn in the forever kind of manner until the connection and attraction that has always simmered between them comes right up against her, with no holds-barred when Shawn decides to focus his laser-like intensity on winning her affections.

It is when Rachel decides to go on a no-holds-barred sex vacation to New York and rekindle the flames with her high school boyfriend that all hell breaks loose and Shawn unleashes all his pent up longing and desire to claim Rachel as his. Rachel is as skittish as commitment phobic heroines come and add to the equation her tendency to ALWAYS go against what her parents gently prod her and urge her to do, when Shawn and her getting married and having a couple of beautiful babies is what both their families have always hinted at all their life.

Shawn has his work cut out for him when he follows Rachel to New York and competing with the Harley riding ex-boyfriend of Rachel’s seems to require his undivided attention. With Rachel as skittish as a wild horse that needs taming when it comes to facing the intense nature of the feelings that sweep them both away on a  journey of sensual awakening that just lights up the reader’s world in a kaleidescope of colors, Shawn is in it to win and make Rachel face what she has always longed for ever since they had both grown up. When tragedy comes calling, it is then that both Rachel and Shawn needs to decide whether theirs is a love that can weather all storms and come out triumphant in the end.

There are so many, many good things about this delectable novel. First of all, I love the fact that this is by far the longest story by Cari Quinn I have had the fortune of reading and that fact alone is enough to make this girl happy. I love Cari’s style of writing, the sense of humor that she injects into her stories and the fact that her characters all come alive and she makes us feel for them in every way; and to go through all this in a longer novel by her was just in that fact alone awesome! I would say that Cari Quinn has outdone herself with this one and I hope she continues to wow me and take my breathe away with stories that are going to follow this one.

When I always pick up an erotic romance, rarely do I expect it to deliver much apart from good smut to send my heart racing and a big goofy grin on my face due to the happily ever after the romance delivers. However, when you pick up a novel by Cari, you definitely know that you will be getting much, much more than just that. Likewise, Shawn and Rachel are both just lovable characters that I fell in love with right away. Their relationship shown through many a conversation and good memories they have of each other shows that they are friends in the truest sense. And oh my ever loving Lord I tell you, the heat between these two is enough to light up the entire Maldives for centuries to come. I found myself holding in my breath, with my heart racing and thudding to keep up with the action between the sheets and many a wicked position these two found themselves in along the way. All in all, very well done, a story that definitely ends up as a favorite of mine in this theme/trope.

And don’t for the love of God get me started on Shawn Griffin or I wouldn’t be able to control myself. The guy just totally made my day, hell he made my whole month by practically lighting up the pages with his very presence and making me swoon damn near every time he comes up with one romantic plan or the other to woo the woman of his dreams into his life always and forever. Shawn definitely knows what good, hot loving is all about and also knows just how to cherish the woman he loves which makes me long for things better left unsaid. *grin*

There is not a single thing that I would change in this story and am so very ecstatic that Cari picked me as one of the reviewers to receive a copy of this beautiful, heartwarming and very sexy story. If you love a good friends to lovers story with plenty of red, hot loving that can leave you breathless and wanting for more with well developed characters and a story that delivers on all fronts, buy yourself a copy and indulge. I dare you not to want a Shawn Griffin of your own halfway through!

Favorite Quotes

Then Rachel walked into the room, her short geisha girl outfit revealing a mile and a half of leg, and his muscles locked as if he were a wolf that had just scented his mate.
She wasn’t the most beautiful woman in the crowd. Wasn’t the most alluring or even the most striking. But to him, she was the only.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble | Loose Id