Finished Talk Me Down by Victoria Dahl. I’ve seen a lot of folks on the Web raving about Dahl’s contemporary romances so I decided to try one.
In this book, a creepy ex-boyfriend drives erotic romance writer Molly Jennings back to her tiny hometown of Tumble Creek, Colo. No sooner is Molly back in town than she runs into Ben Lawson, her girlhood crush who is now the oh-so-sexy chief of police. Molly is eager to see if Ben still lives up to his crush-worthy status, but Ben is a little hesitant, as he doesn’t date local women since the town is so small and gossip gets spread around so fast. Then, there’s the small matter that Ben has no idea what Molly does for a living, since she keeps her job a secret from everyone. But when someone starts stalking Molly, Ben is determined to protect her no matter what …
I liked a lot of things about this book — the Colorado setting, the secondary characters, and especially Ben and Molly. It was nice to read a book where the woman is flirty and fun-loving, and the guy was more reserved and serious. (To me, it often seems like the guy is usually the carefree one in romance books). There was also a cool twist with Molly’s stalker at the end, which I won’t spoil here. Let’s just say that I thought I knew who the bad guy was, but Dahl threw a little something different into the plot that I didn’t expect.
But I had one big issue with the book — the fact that Molly keeps her career as an erotic romance writer a secret from everyone, including her parents. I just didn’t think that was believable at all. How could you keep something like that a secret for years? Especially from your family? And more importantly, why would you want to?
Maybe it’s because I’m a writer, but I work hard on my books and I want folks to know that those are my words they’re reading. Even my most distant family members know that I write books (if I haven’t told them, then someone else has). Even if I was writing erotic romance and using a pen name like Molly does in the book, I’d still tell my close family members what I was doing.
It’s not that Molly isn’t proud of what she does, but she used Ben as the inspiration for one of her stories at the beginning of her career and now wonders how he and everyone else will react if they find out what she does for a living. Okay, I can kind of understand that, but I also thought it was presented as more of a conflict/problem than it really was.
Overall, though, this was a fun, breezy contemporary romance, and I’m interested in reading the read of the Tumble Creek books. So thumbs up.
Up next: Pleasure of a Dark Prince by Kresley Cole.
Books in my TBR pile: About 20.