Hexatorial, $2.99, ISBN 978-0-6481085-3-5
Contemporary Romance, 2019
Sarah Peis’s Some Call It Temptation is marketed as a new adult romance, which means it’s a romance novel narrated from someone’s first person point of view (the heroine’s, in this case), the heroine is in or just left college, and there would be some bikes or cars in the story somehow. However, this one is also marketed as a light romp, so sadly, we will be missing the usual “I was raped before, so now I need healing by snu-snu!” heroine and the heavily-tattooed “I think all women are worthless skanks, so change my mind with pure heroine snu-snu!” hero. Readers, adjust your expectations accordingly.
Stella is filling in for the receptionist in the garage co-owned by Mason Drake. She needs the money so that she can get out of boring, dead-end town and her mother, you see, and I suppose being a temp receptionist is either the highest paying job in Humptulips (yes, that’s the name of the town) or the only one she is qualified for. Mason is hot, of course, and gets her engines all revved up, but he also treats her dismissively and doesn’t kowtow to her petulant demands, so she also thinks that he’s a jerk. That of course gets her engines even more revved up, because nothing turns a lady into a horny sex machine like a douche nozzle with a penis.
Mind you, our heroine thinks that Mason is a douche nozzle. Personally, I think he’s likely more bewildered and exasperated by Stella, because our heroine is trying a little too hard to be a manic pixie girl here. This means that our heroine spends more time at work being a distraction, sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong, offering unsolicited advice, being contradictory just because she can, and cranking out sassy one-liners like it’s her job to smother everyone with quips as much as possible. If I were Mason, I believe I would be tad cranky too at having to deal with her every day.
Even then, there is nothing really interesting here. A character like Stella needs over the top wacky developments in the story, or otherwise she will stick out like a manic clown being a hot mess in a wake. However, I get instead a story that is more of an episodic adventures of our heroine looking for baby formula to add to her drink, sassing with a mechanic that compares himself to Sylvia Browne—clearly a reference that young and hip new adult romance readers will get—and other mundane, boring events. As a result, Stella’s constant quips and clown car antics stand out like a sore thumb.
In a way, this setup kind of makes sense, given that our heroine finds her town super boring and all—she may be the way she is to keep herself distracted from going mad from boredom, for example. However, as I’ve mentioned, the author should have played this angle up more and crank up the absurdity if this had been her intention all along. As it is, this one is just the story of a lady that tries way too hard to be wacky in a perpetually mundane environment. I feel like I should ask her to open a fundraiser so that I can send her a few bucks to let her buy a bus ticket out of town.
As for the romance, it’s very lightweight. Narrated entirely from Stella’s point of view, the romance is actually overshadowed by our heroine’s high-energy day-to-day wacky antics. These two jump from exasperation to love pretty quickly, and the whole thing can be boiled down essentially to a rather shallow “I sometimes can’t stand you but you’re hot, so let’s hook up!” kind of affair.
Anyway, Some Calls It Temptation tries, but the end result is pretty easy to say “Maybe another time, thanks!” to.
