Review: A Dash of Temptation, by Jo Leigh

Mar 26 2011 Published by under Reviews

I recently read and enjoyed Alison Kent’s The Sweetest Taboo, part of a Harlequin Blaze series called “Men to Do”, about three women readers who have become friendly online, and, after bad experiences with supposedly meaningful sex, decide to find themselves a hot one night stand. This book, published in 2003, was strongly recommended to me by Lori of I Just Finished Reading, who recently reread and reviewed it. It is out of print, but I read a Kindle edition purchased for $3.83. You can find a cheap used copy via Amazon or your favorite UBS.

The hero is Dash (Dashiell) Black, scion of the Black family and heir to the throne of Noir, an influential celebrity and lifestyle magazine, a la Vanity Fair, based in Manhattan.
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Are you hot for Harlequin Blaze? Take your temp with this quiz

May 22 2010 Published by under Genre musings


I like Harlequin Blazes. I even have a subscription. And some of the most reliably fun romance authors, like Sarah Mayberry, Kathleen O’Reilly, and Brenda Jackson, write Blazes.

Undeniably, there is a certain descriptive vocabulary you get used to if you read a lot of them. There are some words and phrases I can’t read — in any book — without thinking first of how they are used in a Blaze.

See how well you know Harlequin Blaze by choosing correct meaning for each word or phrase:

1. “Slick folds”

a. Our heroine has earned a rare high compliment from her origami club president

b. Our hero works at a laundromat

c. Someone is ready to par-tay

2. “Toe-curling”

a. In your digital reader, you have accidentally opened The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

b. In a boundary breaking romance, the hero suffers from claw toe

c. Someone is ready to par-tay

3. “Pebbled”

a. The heroine is shopping with her metrosexual best friend for leather totes

b. The hero grew up on the shore of Cape Cod

c. Someone is ready to par-tay

4. “Hot and tight”

a. The heroine’s new Spanx

b. The hero is suffering a myocardial infarction

c. Someone is in the middle of a par-tay

5. “Neatly trimmed thatch”

a. The heroine is having some roof work done

b. The hero’s beard

c. Someone is dressed for the par-tay

6. “A single thrust”

a. The heroine is an architect

b. The hero is a matador

c. Someone is in the middle of a par-tay

7. “Thick ridge”

a. The heroine is a geologist

b. The hero is heir to a potato chip empire

c. Someone wants to par-tay

8. “Milking”

a. The heroine is a wetnurse

b. The hero is a dairy farmer

c. Someone is nearing the end of the par-tay

9. “Pulsing core”

a. The heroine is at Pilates class

b. The hero is watching Journey to the Center of the Earth

c. Did someone say “par-tay”?

10. I can think of a few more (descriptions of how the hero moves, for example. He never just gets out of a chair. He always “moves in one fluid motion”, often with “predatory grace”.) What’s a word or phrase you’ve seen more than once?

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Review: Caught in the Act, by Samantha Hunter (Blaze)

May 13 2010 Published by under Reviews

I listened to Caught in the Act on audio, but it is available in paper and e as well. It is the second in Harlequin’s Dressed to Thrill series, whose plots are kick started by a completely incompetent costume shop employee who  keeps sending out the wrong costumes, leading, as one would expect, to hot sex and true love every time. The others are:

  • Feels Like the First Time (2009) – Tawny Weber (which I review here)
  • Hold on to the Nights (2009) – Karen Foley
  • Santa, Baby (2009) – Lisa Renee Jones

In this installment, set in Florida, Gina happens to get a sexy cabaret costume instead of the ghost costume she ordered, which she needed for the purpose of infiltrating a big costume party at Mason Scott’s house. Mason is the hot shot divorce attorney representing Rio, Gina’s soon-to-be-ex-brother-in-law. Mason has incriminating photos of Gina’s impulsive, always-in-hot-water sister Tracy, and her lover, who happens to be a very evil crime boss.

Sounds simple, right? Unfortunately, Gina happens to be mistaken for a hired performer (the real one happened to have canceled) and is forced to go on stage at the party and sing (which she happens to do pretty well), where she catches Mason’s amorous attention. He happens to track her down in his home office where she is looking for the photos, and they happen to have the best desk sex of their lives.

The next night, Gina has to go back again to get the photos, and more sex ensues, until Mason figures her game out (Gina should have paid more attention to knot tying at summer camp) and they both realize they are dealing with a very serious situation that has put everyone in danger. Instead of going to the authorities, they decide to “let the FBI sleep”, and have more sex until morning, by which time all hell has broken loose.

We then follow Mason and Gina, the FBI, Tracy and Rio, Tracy’s ex-lover, and a bunch of gun totin’ heavies through swamps, tourist towns, and storm tossed waves, including a detour on a sponge harvesting expedition, until it all gets wrapped up in a dramatic finish.

Caught in the Act was a very par-for-the-course Blaze, and I did enjoy listening to it. Despite a couple of truly TSTL moments on both Mason and Gina’s parts, the author was able to balance a pretty convoluted suspense plot with Mason and Gina’s developing relationship, and even throw in a marriage-in-trouble subplot. Although there was a light sketch of Gina as “the staid/boring sister” who needed sexual awakening and a more optimistic, risk-taking attitude towards life, there was almost no tension, sexual or romantic, in the relationship, with external conflicts presenting most of the drama. I happen to like more psychological action and internal tension, but that’s just a personal preference.

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