Samhain Publishing, $5.50, ISBN 978-1-61921-086-8
Contemporary Romance, 2012
Meet Jon “Tin Tin” Carlisle. He’s some kind of pilot, but his job doesn’t matter here, so he’s just another Military Guy on Paper. Besides, given the sheer abundance of sex scenes in this story, he spends more time naked than clothed, so the uniform doesn’t really register. He’s a charmer, a playboy with commitment issues. And then, we have Heather Morris, a former wild chick with tattoo and nipple ring (ooh, so rebellious!) turned straight-laced assistant director in an accounting firm. She doesn’t think much about commitment either. So what happens when two clichés boink?
Inside Bet, of course. The author attempts to inject some emotional “Whoa, commitment is like, oh, not good, but sex is like, wow!” drama, but the crux of the story is the spoon in the honey jar. Or is it hand in a cookie jar? The last twenty or so pages see the hero whining that he’s been given sad looks by people, and the heroine turns on the shrink mode and apologizes for giving him sad looks like make his inner little boy cry, and all is well before the bed springs start creaking again.
Now, this story is readable, and it doesn’t suffer from an idiot plot like Double Down. But this story still substitutes moping about issues for substance, and the issues are so boring and played out. Similar to the previous book in this Vegas Top Guns series, the author’s idea of “bad” or “naughty” antics are often far tamer than what they are built up to be. A nipple ring and a tattoo as emblems of a girl gone wild? Oh please. Genital piercing, perhaps, but come on, tattoos and nipple rings are for wannabes. Justin Bieber has, what, seven tattoos? He’s such a wild dog, alright, woof!
Anyway, this one promises to be a wild trip to the skies, but it turns out to be a wet drip of a read with generic characters with played-out issues pretending to be all hot and raunchy.
