Digital Reviews: A Tale Of Two Cosmos

In a bid to fool myself into thinking I'm making progress on the ARC Pile Of Doom currently living on my Kindle I thought I'd knock out two quick novellas - both by authors who have consistently worked well for me over the years.  Turns out I was in for a few surprises.

Burned by Sarah Morgan is a sequel to the well-received Ripped and this time the younger sister is in the driver's seat.  Rosie Miller is hardcore into martial arts and is a personal trainer at a London gym.  She shares an apartment with her sister and loves her job.  Her personal life however?  Yeah, she's out to dinner with her latest boyfriend who is unceremoniously dumping her prior to dessert.

I stared at him, wondering whether to kill him now or wait until after dessert.  It was chocolate brownie, my favourite, so I decided to wait.  I wasn't hungry, but no woman ate chocolate because she was hungry.

As if the dumping weren't humiliating enough, sitting behind her at the next table is none other than Hunter Black.  Sexy as sin, the guy who broke her heart to the point of obliteration, Hunter Black.  And now he's there to witness her getting dumped.  Grand.  But wait, there's more!  Turns out Hunter has just purchased the gym where she works.  You know, the job that she loves.  He's her new boss.  Seriously, shoot her now.

Much like Ripped this was "fun erotic romance."  The perfect afternoon pick-me-up.  The perfect antidote when you're tired of wallowing in angst.  That being said?  Without getting into too much pyschobabble and spilling my personal history all over this blog - there were aspects of this story that hit a little close to an "emotional home" for me.  Hunter decimated Rosie and for that reason I wanted more of his blood on the page.  As in I wanted a grovel that was the equivalent of what he put her through years before.  She was young, she was desperately in love, and she was emotionally vulnerable.  I wanted Hunter to pay for that.  And he does - um, somewhat.  I just wanted more.  Still, it's a good solid read and I liked it a lot.  I just have, you know, baggage.

Grade = B-

Let me count the ways I love Megan Hart's books.  So it breaks my heart that Crossing the Line didn't work for me at all.  And I mean, really - at all.

Caite Fox works for a PR firm and one of her bosses is Jamison Wolfe.  Uptight, seriously wound, Jamison Wolfe.  Normally she works with the other partner, but said other partner has had complications arise with her pregnancy and is now out of the office indefinitely on bed rest.  Which means Caite and Jamison working together.  A tricky business since she's hot to trot for him and he doesn't seem to think much of her.  He doesn't seem to trust her very much, or find her capable in handling their new clients, a roster of reality show stars that find more trouble than the Jersey Shore kids ever did.

My problems with this story arise immediately with Caite and don't let up.  It's the way she talks to her Jamison.  The way she acts around him.  HE. IS. HER. BOSS.  She's all flirty and smart-alecky and.....

HE. IS. HER. BOSS.

Given the cut-throat, high stress atmosphere that PR work can entail, her behavior towards him smacked of unprofessional to say the least.  If this had been the real world she would have been reprimanded.  Or, you know, fired.  I suspect the author was going for "light" and "fun" - and it is that.....I guess.  But something about the interactions between the two main characters rubbed me wrong.  I didn't like her and I just didn't care about him one way or the other.

Now at only 80 pages, I should have probably just finished this.  But see first paragraph about ARC Pile Of Doom.  When I hit the 50% mark and I realized that I just didn't care what happened next?  Yeah, I was done.  Hart is capable of delivering shorter works that I enjoy (see this year's Every Part of You serial) but this one was a miss for me.

Grade = DNF