Digital Review: Danger. Johnny Danger.

If nothing is going to officially tip the scales for blog readers that Wendy has finally lost her marbles - well Outside The Lines by Bella Love is the book that could possibly be the nail in my coffin.  I'll be blunt - when it's not borderline absurd, it's outright absurd.  It's an over-the-top cocktail of hot contemporary erotic romance, romantic suspense, and holy heck - the hero's name is Johnny Danger.

Yes. Johnny. Danger.

And if you think it possibly couldn't get any more absurd?  The heroine's name is Juliette Jauntie.

If you've made it this far into the review, congratulations!  Now, on to the pertinent details - you know other than Johnny. Danger.

Juliette is an accountant who has her own firm.  Well, of sorts.  She's the firm, being a one-woman operation.  She's very small potatoes.  She's hired by a soon-to-be-ex judge's wife, to do a valuation of their assets, in what is supposed to be a fairly amicable divorce.  The fly in the ointment?  Johnny. Technically her competition and not small potatoes.  His ritzy boutique accounting firm is upstairs in the same building and he is representing the judge's interests as a favor to his business partner (a close, personal friend of the judges').

This could be Juliette's big break, and admittedly she's excited to maybe take Johnny down a couple of notches.  So she ends up working through Christmas, realizes there's something rotten in Denmark, but....screw it.  She's pissed that Johnny Danger would just assume she has no life (OK, so she doesn't - but he doesn't need to know that), so once she turns in her mic-drop-valuation, she hits the nearest ski resort.

Naturally Johnny is unthrilled with Juliette's findings, as are the clients.  The directive?  Find her and bring her to heel.  Tracking Juliette down at the resort however leads to a lot more than burning the midnight oil over financial records.  For one thing these two crazy kids stumble on to a mystery and for another?  They want to rip each others' clothes off with their teeth.

In some ways this story is kind of a mess.  I have no idea exactly who Johnny is other than a guy with an absurd name.  He's this weird combination of accountant, lawyer and fixer all rolled into one.  For a while I thought he was just an accountant - but then...other stuff comes into play and frankly he smacks of another Romance Novel Gazillionaire Who Does Everything For A Living.

Juliette was an easier sell for me.  She hasn't been handed anything in life and she's worked really hard to get where she is - to the detriment of friends, having a life, doing anything other than working with numbers for a meager living.  Even if she wasn't pissed at having to work over Christmas, it's not like she has any better options, which is just sad.

This all makes it sound like the book was ho-hum for me.  If you can roll with Johnny. Danger. it's actually pretty good.  The suspense subplot was interesting, although probably could have been fleshed out more thoroughly (this is a category length novel), and the sex scenes are hot enough to peel wallpaper.  The first one at the ski resort, in particular - ooo la la!

Was it borderline silly at times?  Sure.  Was it still fun to read?  Hey, I didn't DNF it and I literally inhaled it while sitting on an airplane.  And honestly?  All the accounting stuff, the talking about numbers - well, it was kind of hot.  You'll just have to trust me on this.

It does end on a happy-for-now and it's obvious that Johnny. Danger. has commitment "issues." Which means, you guessed it, a second book in the series is in the works.  Which I get that some readers find annoying, but hey - at least this first book doesn't end on a cliffhanger.

Final Grade = B-

Note: There are two versions of this book. Seriously.  The first-person edition (that I read) and a third-person edition.  I have a lot to say about this.  Most of it involving frothing at the mouth and staring dumbly at the Amazon page in disbelief.  Authors - write the damn book how you want to write it.  How you "conceive" it.  For every reader that intensely dislikes first person, there are an equal number (seriously) of us who love it.  You can't please every reader, all of the time and this smacks (to me) of trying to do that.  Seriously. Please don't let this become "a thing."  I probably shouldn't hate it as much as I do (really, it's a silly thing to "hate on") but ugh - it just annoys me.  Write. The. Book. You. Want. To. Write.  Trying to please us readers all the time - well, that way lies madness.  And I say this as a reader who acknowledges that I have my own nutty quirks when it comes to likes and dislikes.

Digital Review: Like a Record Player

I have publicly said, many times, that I love first person point-of-view. If anything could possibly get my ovaries out of permanent vacation mode, more first person romance novels would probably be it.  Well, I've finally found out where all the first person books in Romancelandia live.

In self-publishing.

Spin by Bella Love is the first in a sexy contemporary novella series, and does what all first books in series should do.  That is to say, even with my quibbles, I'm looking forward to the later installments featuring the hero's friends and business partners.

Jane MacInnee ("Janey Mac") has spent her entire life trying to make people forget she's from Dodge Run.  From the time she was old enough to know better, she's determined to kick up her heels and run as far away from RedneckVille as she can - including her drunken mother and an abusive father (oh, who just happened to be the town mayor).  The problem is that the only thing Jane is good at is "getting shit done."  So she figures her ticket to success is managing other people - specifically as an event planner to people who have more money than good manners.  It's while she's working a job that she thinks will catapult her into the stratosphere that she runs into Finn Dante.

Finn was the "bad boy" in Dodge Run.  The boy mothers told their girls to stay away from, and naturally none of those girls listened.  Not even Jane - who had a couple of brief encounters with him that got her all spun up.  Now she just so happens to be in Finn's backyard, and he's bound and determined to finish what they started all those years ago.  The question is - will Jane stop running scared long enough to enjoy the ride?

If you're a reader that totally goes for the whole Small Town Bad Boy thing, then this is the book for you.  Finn is so hot he could melt ice cubes on the North Pole.  He's sexy, he's charming, and he practically smolders on the page.  He also seems like a nice guy, one who doesn't let any personal baggage (his military career, his past....) get in his way.  He's a guy that isn't scared (or at least doesn't let on that he is) and he's not the sort of guy to let anything hold him back.

In contrast, Jane is very much the sort of person who is letting her baggage overwhelm her.  Her whole life has been spent trying to make people forget she's "trash from Dodge Run."  She's going to climb that ladder no matter how many butts she has to kiss, how many messes she needs to clean up, and she's going to do it all while soothing a ruffled caterer, reassuring her steamrolled client's daughter, and dodging the lecherous advances of her client's husband.  She's got a "can-do" attitude that masks the fact that she's spent her whole life running scared.

Even though this novella is told in alternating first-person points of view (between Jane and Finn) - Jane is really the character that carries this story.  She's a mess, but she's a likable, charming and sometimes funny mess.  She knows she should say no to Finn, she knows she should stay away, but she can't - because, I mean, hello?  Just look at the guy.

I did have a few quibbles with the story, but nothing that will keep me from dumping the series.  I did think there were a few uneven chapter transitions and the writing could have been smoothed out in a few places.  Also I raised my eyebrows so high during the sex scene involving food that I'm surprised they're still on my forehead - but extra points to the author for not using the old stand-bys of chocolate, whipped cream, honey or champagne.  Trust me, there is no way you're going to guess.  Still, I had a good time reading it, and I was engaged by the characters.  Heck, I even read the teaser for the next story featured at the end, and that's something I never do.

Final Grade = B-