All Through the Night By Suzanne Forster, Thea Devine, Lori Foster, Shannon McKenna

Summary

Stranger in Her Bed by Suzanne Forster - Stranger in Her Bed was a very different kind of romance. It embodies an almost surreal quality throughout most of the story, because the heroine isn't quite sure if she's dreaming or going crazy or what. The premise is very unique as well. Kerry is a software designer who was fired when she sent a suggestive email to an attractive man she met at her company's picnic, not knowing he was the owner of the company. Around that same time, she also developed a severe case of agoraphobia after being mugged twice in her own neighborhood. I could relate to Kerry's sentimental feelings for her grandparents' house, and how she was reluctant to move even though the area where it was located had seriously gone downhill and become unsafe. I could also sense her fear of going outside. As a result, she now lives a very isolated life locked up in her house, wearing several layers of clothing, and works at home as a video game tester. Kerry's latest project involves testing an adult video game in which a man's voice tries to seduce her, based on her verbal responses to his questions and a heart-rate monitor. When the video game designers add a man's face to the game at her suggestion, she starts to fall in love with him. This is where the story starts to feel like a fantasy romance. I thought Kerry's reaction to the possibility that she was falling for her video game hunk who she dubbed Jean (she's huge Le Miserables fan) was pretty realistic. Intellectually, she knows he's not real and keeps trying to tell herself that, but I think all the loneliness and isolation made her more open to the idea that he might be. Then when he shows up in her bedroom one night in the flesh, seducing and pleasuring her, she first thinks she's dreaming and then, going crazy. As I said, it's a very unusual concept but a very intriguing one as well. Jean truly is a fantasy lover. He tells Kerry that he's cursed and needs her to make him feel something he's never felt before in order to be free, yet at the same time, his sole mission seems to be reawakening Kerry to the things she's been missing in life. He always seems to know just the right things to do and say to put her at ease and make her feel better. In between Kerry's visits with Jean, we get to know a little bit about two other men who are connected to her. Kerry's former employer, Joe, feels terrible about what happened that caused her leave his company, but every time he's tried to call and apologize, she's hung up on him. He's crazy about her in more ways than one, so pretending to be “Phil,” the human resources director, he keeps trying to entice her to take back her old job. Then there's Malcolm, the eccentric tenant who lives in Kerry's garage apartment. She finds him to be a little creepy and has him pegged as a wacky conspiracy theorist, until he brings her some little gifts and says something that brightens her day. I won't say anything else about the three men in Kerry's life, because I don't want to spoil the story. Suffice it to say that someone loves Kerry enough to go to great lengths to help her which was very sweet. I figured out pretty early in the story what was going on, but it didn't stop me from enjoying the journey. Stranger in Her Bed was a unique and slightly off-beat romance that was a very pleasant read. Although it was published in an anthology that is billed as erotic, there is only one almost and one full love scene. The author's style of writing these scenes is more about feelings, sensations and setting a mood, rather than body parts or explicit language. There were times that I almost wanted the wording to be more straightforward, because it could be a tad confusing. Still, I can't deny the appeal. I've never read sensual scenes written like this before, which was yet another uncommon element. Since this was my first read by Suzanne Forster, I don't know if she writes like this all the time or specifically wrote this way to add to the dream-like quality of this particular story, but this sampling of her work whetted my appetite enough to want to find out. Stranger in Her Bed was first published in the anthology All Through the Night and was later reprinted in the anthology Kiss Me Again. Star Rating: ****; Sensuality Rating: 4 No Mercy by Thea Devine – No Mercy was my first read by Thea Devine, and I'm sorry to say that it didn't really resonate with me. In fact, there is virtually nothing about the story that I can honestly say I enjoyed. For starters, the characters were not the typical kinds that I like to read about. I have no problem with wealthy characters as long as I can relate to them in some other way, but these characters were not only rich, but very high-powered, type-A personalities who seemed to enjoy playing games in both the boardroom and the bedroom. The author tells us that Regan was born on the wrong side of the tracks, but after her marriage to Bobby fell apart, the father of Tony, a supporting character, gave her an opportunity in real estate. Now she's a top-selling agent, working with the wealthiest clients on commercial properties and apparently making a ton of money at it. We don't get to see anything of her humble beginnings at all, and the story opens with her buying a $300 pair of shoes (the sale price:-0), which is something so far outside the realm of my experience as to be completely foreign. Bobby was born into money and his family hated Regan for her origins, not thinking her good enough for him. They supposedly had a whirlwind romance, marrying young, but their marriage failed due to Bobby not being good enough in the bedroom for the passionate Regan and also because of his extreme jealousy and possessiveness. When he returns, he claims to have changed, but he's still an arrogant alpha who seems to think he can waltz back into Regan's life and start calling the shots. The only two secondary characters are Angie, Bobby's sister and Regan's best friend and Tony, Regan's boss who has a thing for her. I never fully understood what Tony's relationship to Regan and Bobby was. He seemed to know an awful lot about their personal lives for a mere boss. The twist at the end involving Tony and Angie wasn't entirely unexpected, but I did find it to be extremely abrupt with no satisfactory explanations. Overall, I thought all the characters were very much lacking depth and none of them were particularly relatable to me. A large part of my issues with the characters can probably be traced to the fact that the author left me with more questions than answers about them. Why did Bobby and Regan continue to carry a torch for each other for seven long years when by all reports, they constantly fought when they were married? Why did they break up to begin with if they loved each other so much? It was supposedly due in part to Bobby not being experienced enough to handle Regan's sexual appetites, so what made her think that he could satisfy her now? When they first reunited and Bobby started propositioning her, Regan said, \"No sex, no sex, no sex,\" then abruptly did an about face, saying, \"Yes sex.\" Why? Apparently because she couldn't resist him, but I repeat myself, why? What were Regan's carnal needs that Bobby couldn't fulfill when they were married? I almost expected her to want BDSM or to have some unusual fetish, but nothing like that ever came to light. When they got back together, they did have wild monkey sex, but nothing I'd call kinky or even particularly unusual. If Ms. Devine had taken the time to explain some of these things, I might have liked the story a whole lot better, but as is, I felt like there were a lot of holes. The last thing that nearly drove me to distraction was the author's writing style. She engages in an extreme amount of head-hopping, where one paragraph is in one character's POV, and the next is in another's. Numerous times, I had to backtrack to make sure I was clear as to whose perspective I was reading. The characters also frequently “think out loud.” It's not even what I would call meaningful introspection, but simply them having a conversation with themselves in their own mind, which I found annoying. The author would often interrupt one character's dialog with another character, to have the POV character meander off into these long passages of internal monologuing, which made me lose track of the conversation. Ms. Devine composes her prose in a very short, clipped manner which doesn't flow well, and her dialog is sometimes choppy too, not embodying the natural flow of conversation. I also thought the dialog was more or less inane chit-chat, not really advancing the character or plot development like it should have, and it also lacked the proper tags to set the emotion and atmosphere of a scene. Lastly, everything, including the love scenes felt extremely cold, clinical and lacking in feelings. It was darn near impossible to believe that these two people loved each other, because I couldn't sense it at all. It was all telling and no showing. I kept asking, “Where's the romance?” Regan and Bobby were reuniting after many years of supposedly still loving each other, and yet, there was no excitement, no tenderness, no loving feelings, no romantic gestures, just pure unadulterated lusty sex, which does not a romance make, in my opinion. No Mercy was quite simply an unsatisfying read on a number of levels. I'm afraid even my love of reunion romance couldn't save this one from being a frustrating read. Despite all my criticisms though, I ended up giving it two stars, mainly because I didn't entirely hate it. I simply didn't connect with the story or characters in a meaningful way, but perhaps others might. I also think the author's writing style is more of an acquired taste. I may have been feeling a bit more generous too, because it was a short story. If I'd had to wade through these kinds of deficiencies in a full-length novel, I'm sure I would have been begging for mercy.;-) I may have made it through this novella, but I certainly won't be actively seeking out any more of Ms. Devine's works in the future. Star Rating: **; Sensuality Rating: 4 Satisfy Me by Lori Foster - I had previously read one novella and one full-length novel by Lori Foster and can't say that I was overly impressed with either. Since Ms. Foster seems to be well-loved among most romance readers, this had been quite disappointing to me. I decided to give her one more try and picked up her Truth or Dare anthology. The first story in it, Satisfy Me, turned out to be a very pleasant surprise. I thoroughly enjoyed this steamy little novella, and am happy to say that it has put Lori Foster back on my watch list. Asia was a nice mix of shy uncertainty coupled with just a little bit of daring. I liked that in spite of her ex-husband having done a number on her confidence with his selfishness in the bedroom, she had managed to mostly rebuild her self-esteem and was ready to take the bull by the horns so to speak. It took some adventurousness on her part to live up to her friend's dare and go to the adult shop, then ask Cameron out when he purchased the agreed upon item. I also really appreciated that she gave Cameron a chance to explain himself when there was a miscommunication about her preferences in the bedroom, and more importantly, that she believed him rather than jumping to conclusions. I thought that having Cameron lusting after Asia for the entire two months since he had come to work at the same company made their quick hook-up and falling for one another more believable. I just couldn't help adoring Cameron. He was just so loving, giving and focused on Asia's pleasure which of course, is exactly the kind of man she needed in her life. I liked that he was willing to do anything to get her and keep her, including something slightly kinky, even though he ended up being mistaken about that. It just showed that he was completely committed to fulfilling her needs even if it was by doing something that wasn't entirely his cup of tea. Overall, Satisfy Me was a quick, sexy and satisfying read that is the first story in Lori Foster's Brava Girlfriends series. It introduced Asia's two best friends, Becky and Erica who become the heroines of the next two novellas, Indulge Me and Drive Me Wild respectively. I'm really looking forward to continuing the series and finding out what Becky's fantasy is. Hopefully, her story will be equally as delightful as this novella was. Satisfy Me was first published in the anthology All Through the Night. It was later reprinted in the anthology Kiss Me Again, and a third time in the single-author anthology Truth or Dare along with its two companion novellas. Star Rating: *****; Sensuality Rating: 4.5 Something Wild by Shannon McKenna - Something Wild was Shannon McKenna's first published romance and the second by her I've read. There were some strong similarities between the two stories, and I'm sorry to say that both were just OK for me. Ms. McKenna seems to use certain themes in her romances, such as uber-alpha heroes who like to be bossy and dominant, and angry sex, that are simply not my cup of tea. This story is pretty much the ultimate road trip. After finally getting out of an abusive relationship, Annie packs up some meager belongings in her rattle-trap truck and heads for a casino in Louisiana where Lady Luck had favored her in the past. Along the way she catches the attention of Jacob who is on vacation and had hit the open road on his motorcycle. Apparently, having no particular destination in mind, he follows the beautiful lady who heats his blood and flirts with her along the road for the next three days. The beginning of the story made me uncomfortable, because Jacob's behavior borders on stalkerish. The man followed her halfway across the country after seeing her at a stop along the way, and then insinuated himself into her life. Once Jacob and Annie finally meet and talk in person, they end up sleeping together that very same night without even knowing the other's last name. Stranger sex doesn't usually work very well for me either, but I couldn't deny that at first, Jacob was a very seductive sweet-talker and a tender lover. This started to draw me into the story despite my earlier misgivings, but then everything changed. Having just ditched her abusive ex, Annie is struggling to find her independence. As a result, she enjoys having sex with the sensuous, sexy Jacob, but she understandably doesn't want any strings. Two mornings in a row, she basically blows him off, and it seems that things are over between them until he can't resist and goes searching for her again. This time, when he went after her, he was none too happy about it and what ensued, when he finally caught up to her, amounted, in my opinion, to an extreme show of dominance which bordered perilously on forced seduction. This is something I don't care for and don't find romantic at all, so I didn't really enjoy this part of the story much. From there they engage in a ridiculous amount of nearly continuous angry sex until Annie decides to make a run for it. This time when Jacob goes after her, he finally lightens up and admits that he only acted like a caveman because he was afraid of losing her and couldn't live without her. By then, it was too little too late for me. Not to mention, in my mind, his behavior was still bordering on obsessive stalker. If I were Annie, having just gotten away from one abusive man, Jacob's actions would have scared the heck out of me and had me running as far away from him as I could possibly get, but deep down she actually loves his crazy pursuit of her, trusts him implicitly from the first time they meet, and falls madly in love with him in only a few days. I'm afraid these things stretched the bounds of credibility further than my imagination was willing to go. The bottom line: Readers who have fantasies of being pursued by a dominant, bad boy, motorcycle man will probably enjoy this one more than I did, but due to his volatile nature, Jacob was far from an ideal hero for me. I gave it three stars for the couple of scenes where I enjoyed Jacob's seductiveness, but ultimately, I didn't really feel the love connection between these two. It felt more like they were playing a dangerous game that in real life could have damaging psychological consequences. That simply didn't work for me from a romance standpoint, because to my way of thinking, love should heal not hurt. Something Wild was originally published in the multi-author anthology, All Through the Night, and later republished in the single-author anthology, All About Men. Star Rating: ***; Sensuality Rating: 4.5 Review provided by The Hope Chest Reviews (http://www.thcreviews.com)
Violence-1-Heroine of the first story Stranger in Her Bed was menaced by some neighborhood thugs, but I don't recall any violence in the other stories.
Language-3-A number of mild to moderate profanities. Two of the stories have a few instances of the f-bomb.
Sexual-4-This anthology is billed as erotic. The love scenes range from 4 to 4.5, sensuous to quite steamy, but not kinky.
Drug & Alcohol-1-Casual alcohol consumption.