Review: Woman On The Run

Woman On The Run by Lisa Marie Rice
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Reading Updates: 20% 

30% 

I'm glad this is tagged as erotic (and erotica but I think it's more the first) because that is what I was here for. The story is a dime a dozen in rom-suspense. Uptight book editor city gal Julia witnesses a murder committed by a mafia guy and has to go into witness protection. She gets sent to in the boonies small town Idaho and is given the cover as a school teacher(????). There she meets former Navy SEAL now turned rancher(LOVE it, lol) Cooper. He's the looming strong silent type who also comes from a cursed family, for generations women have either died or ran away from the ranch leaving their menfolk and one child they were only able to bear. There's also sinister povs of an assassin who is hunting Julia to kill her and collect on the $1 million (later bumped up to $2mil!) bounty on her head to stop her from testifying against mafia guy and povs from the US Marshall in charge of Julia's case. 

It's all a little suspenseful and a little predictable (this was published in 1999 and I think more modern readers are going to guess and spoil the supposed to be shock reveal of the assassin) but enjoyable typical rom-suspense. You even get an O.K. Corral like shooting ending. Fun! I'm getting impatient because I want to talk about what had me reading this book in one setting but there's some Julia finding her place and helping/becoming friends with townspeople for setting and her and Cooper do talk and bond, and when the Marshall's have a flub on their end, he gets to be take charge alpha man and protective of Julia. Per one of my updates, I also learned about the (maybe) fun fact about champagne glasses and Maria Antoinette's boobs and what a fern bar was (I was born in the 80s and must have missed this 70s phenomenon). All cool and will hopefully clench a bar trivia win for me someday. 

But honestly, just whatever to all that because, my friends, thank goodness this was tagged as erotic/a because that became what I was solely here for lol. 

He’s magnificent, was all Julia could think as Cooper approached her slowly, broad shoulders blocking out the rest of the room. Moisture—condensation? rain?—clung to his inky hair and Julia’s hands itched to run her fingers through the thick dark pelt. His expression was stern as always. She wanted to touch his face, see if she could make the frown lines go away, trace that hard, beautiful mouth with her finger. Cooper came up so close to her that she had to tilt her head. He looked down at her and his face had never seemed more harsh, more angular. 

“Come with me,” he said. “Now.” 

“Yes, Cooper,” Julia whispered, and put her curried drumstick down on the tablecloth, missing her plate by a good ten inches. Cooper grabbed her hand and dragged her through the door and towards a black pickup. “Where are we going?” Julia cried. 

Cooper practically threw her into the cab, got in and pulled away with a squeal of tires. “To your house,” he said tightly. “This time we’re going to get it right. We’re going to fuck all night.” 

The curried drumstick not only got put the f down, it didn't even make the plate!!!! Now, I know posting quotes like this out of context can sometimes seem cheesy but as a someone who more often than not loathes insta-lust, again, I was HERE for it. These two had chemistry and as I said in my first update, examples of why they were lusting, it didn't feel empty at all, that heat was there, present, and shown. When he dropped that last line, it was gawd damn! from me. This sweater set woman was clutching her pearls but that hand was SWEATY. I loved it how lusty she was for him and how it was written to deliver emotions and make me the reader believe in their lusty heat. 

So, yeah, I finally have an insta-lust story to recommend :) 

Also, ol' Coop wasn't just raging hormones: The only other time in his life in which his hand trembled had been the first time with her. Sally Anderson was slowly undoing him. Then putting him back together. A better man. 

Sally is Julia's witness protection alias

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30%

All of a sudden he could see that the old saying—a woman’s breast should fit into a champagne glass—was absolutely true. And here he’d gone for women whose breasts would fit into the ice bucket.

"the old saying" ???????????

 

*so another instance of a romance book furthering my education. This has to do with Marie Antoinette and rumorish historical "fact" that champagne glasses (not the tall flute, small margarita like champagne ones, I was confused asf lol) are the size they are because they were measured by the queen's breast. I can't believe I didn't already know this. ME. Historical fun fact has taken 1st in bar trivia ME. Lost my mind. 

This was, easily, an hour worth of conversation in casa Whiskey.

Reading Update: 20%

Up to now, she would have sworn that all her sex hormones were in her head. Her three affairs had started because she’d found that the man shared her taste in literature or had interesting reasons why not, or because he was a witty conversationalist or because he made her laugh. Definitely not because his large, strong hands, which had a light dusting of black hairs on the backs, rested with easy, elegant competence on the wheel, or because the muscles in his forearm did a fascinating dance every time he shifted gears or because when he popped the clutch, thick muscles played under the jeans from his knees to his groin… Julia whipped her head around and stared blindly out the window.

Ok, I think it's been fairly well established that I have a problem with insta-lust, I get nothing from reading it. But I would also make the argument that I usually don't get anything from it is because usually I feel like it is written so empty. 

This passage right here, I believe in this lust. Maybe because I also have had lip biting moments watching a man drive but it's also due to this writing. This couple is insta-lust but wooooo boy am I not only believing in it because of this, example if you will, but am feeling very invested in this heating up romance. 

Review: Dangerous Passion

Dangerous Passion by Lisa Marie Rice
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2.5 stars

Standing in the shadows in the cold of a Manhattan winter or the steamy furnace of a Manhattan summer for an hour or two a month, without his bodyguards, without any security whatsoever, for a glimpse of a woman…it was madness.

The beginning of this was crazy good. The suspense, danger, and action was gripping. Then the story started to become the hero constantly talking about how the heroine is not like any other woman and his fantasy of banging her. We don't get a sex scene until the second half, which shocked me because this is categorized as erotica but the constant fantasizing by the hero and then the second half focus on sex more than earn that category.

I wanted more action because the author wrote it so well. The villain was good, the hero's dark background was good, and I could even handle the very good girl but,

It had also been clear that she wasn’t wearing a bra, because she didn’t need it. Her breasts were perfect as they were.

No. She's sweet, amazing, no make-up, perfect no-dyed shade hair, amazing artistic talent, etc, etc, but no to the perfect breasts not needing a bra to look "perfect". I can sustain my disbelief only so far. Really though, I just couldn't with the perfect all other women are scum heroine, as viewed by the hero.

The sex didn't grip me because I didn't "know" the characters enough. Great first two chapters, though.

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Reading Update: 20%

She straightened and looked him full in the face, wincing, expecting a monster, expecting to see brutality and savagery. What she saw instead was a weary kind of gentleness and what looked an awful lot like remorse. “I’m so sorry.”His deep voice was low as he wrapped a huge hand around her arm. “For everything. But now we must go.”

Wild horses couldn't have pulled me away from these first two chapters.