Kimani, $6.50, ISBN 978-0-373-86367-9
Contemporary Romance, 2014
Tropes and clichés (which can be one and the same sometimes, depending on how the author uses a certain trope) are part and parcel of series romance, which is what Kimani has turned into after being bought over by Harlequin a while back. Sultry Pleasure, however, feels too much like a list of clichés, which the author uses to check off the items one by one.
We have another heroine working in a non-profit endeavor. Meet Diana Hobbes. She has the same old issues with her mother. She also has some kind of weird complex about how men would think of her as a big skank if she even looks at a man in some kind of way. The hero Marcus Stanfield is naturally a billionaire playboy who can’t accept no and insists on hauling the heroine into all kinds of clinch, and this is a good thing because the heroine is actually panting to wobble all over that man. They date, they have sex, they have the same old issues revolving around annoying parents, his “mercenary nature” (that is, he wants to make a profit for a living) versus her “bleeding heart” nature (how dare the hero even think of making money for a living!)… really, been there, done that, and I really don’t want to be there and do that all over again given that the author doesn’t do much to make things even a little bit different or interesting this time around.
The author doesn’t make things better by introducing annoyingly frequent and often abrupt head hopping from one character to another, and she also tells more than she shows here. The story is already predictable and samey, and the author’s flat and uninteresting style can’t make up for the lifelessness that is Sultry Pleasure. The title is probably the most interesting thing about this story, but it’s also a form of false advertising. Things are more like Boring Yawn here, so readers beware.
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