Format: E-book
Read with: iBooks for iPad
Length: Short Novel
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Harlequin Intrigue
Publisher: Harlequin
Hero: Ben Frazer
Heroine: Blanche Magnolia Brown
Sensuality: 3
Date of Publication: January 1, 2000
Started On: December 11, 2011
Finished On: December 11, 2011

I mourn the fact that there are no authors like Anne Stuart out there with a vengeance. I sometimes get restless after reading romances featuring overly sweet heroes, not that they aren’t enticing in their own way. Maybe I am sadistic, but I love a bit of ruthlessness in my heroes and I won’t mind if someone presents me with a mountain of books featuring the said variety of heroes. So my restlessness had me doing a Google search to seek out those authors that have a similar writing style. But I should have known better since from the very start I have identified the fact that Anne Stuart simply put, is one of a kind. So there I was searching through her back list to find a book that would catch my fancy and I ended up reading not one, but two Anne Stuart books in one day!

28 year old Maggie Brown has always been the sensible and responsible older twin whilst her younger twin Stella had always been as flaky and outrageous as their mother. Maggie and her father had always looked out for the two women and with him passing away two years back, the sole responsibility of cleaning up after their messes falls on Maggie’s shoulders. So it is her mother Delia’s sort of death-bed wish that Stella be present when she passes away that has Maggie taking a leave of absence from her job at the bank and flying to Las Cruces, San Pablo, a tiny country somewhere between Spain and France. And there she meets Ben Frazer, the man who drives her completely nuts, the man who ruffles her calm unlike any other and also the man who her senses clamor to possess and be possessed by.

Ben has an agenda of his own when it comes to the plain Maggie Brown who somehow gets under his skin right from the very start. Ben plans on leading Maggie around on a wild goose chase around the rough terrain of San Pablo just to prick and poke into that overly proper exterior of hers. The lively sword play of words that takes place between Ben and Maggie right from the start is overly amusing and serves as foreplay to the very hot and well done scene of explosive passion that Ms. Stuart provides towards the end.

Ben might want to brush away how much Maggie actually makes him feel and Maggie at first brushes away those twinges that come with sexual desire as hunger pangs. But both Maggie and Ben know that between them lies a load of sexual tension that is just waiting to ignite, that is just waiting to take them both to new heights in the culmination of their mutual desire and wanting for one another. There is something to be said for well done sexual tension that is headier on the senses than the most well done erotica and time and yet again, Ms. Stuart proves her capability and mastery at providing readers with just that.

With bits and pieces of a villain who stalks them both and has a personal score to settle with Ben, this short novel provided me with just what I needed and wanted in my attempts to read a book with a hero who isn’t an overly sweet one right from the beginning.

Recommended for fans of Anne Stuart and fans of her heroes, this one’s deliciously and mouth wateringly good!

Favorite Quotes

He hooted with laughter. “I should have known. Do you have a calculator for a brain and an adding machine for a heart?”
“I don’t think you need to worry about my heart, Mr. Frazer. It’s not going to have anything to do with you.”
His slow, lazy smile was quite possibly his most potent weapon. She wanted to slap it off his face, and yet at the same time it stirred odd, unexpected feelings in the pit of her stomach.

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