Erotic, kinky, romance-contemporary
BLURB
Hotel chain mogul Sol DuMont is about to learn that some of life’s biggest surprises come in deceptively small packages—namely a petite heiress named Rain who’s hell-bent on upsetting her family’s expectations—in this first book in the all new series by Thea de Salle, set against the sultry backdrop of New Orleans.
Thirty-seven-year-old Sol DuMont is a divorcee and the owner of a mid-sized hotel chain in New Orleans. Since Hurricane Katrina, his father’s death, and the decision that he and his ex-wife Maddy are far better off friends than lovers, he’s lost interest in almost everything he held dear—parties, people, and pushing limits.
All his limits.
Then Arianna Barrington checks into his hotel.
Twenty-four-year-old AriaInna “Rain” Barrington could have been society’s sweetheart. Her family is moneyed, connected press darlings, and make sweeping headlines from coast to coast for reasons both good and bad. But when her mother shoves her at Charles Harwood—the obnoxious, entitled heir of Harwood Corp—to cement a billion-dollar business merger, Rain does the only thing she can think of to escape: she creates a scandal so big Harwood doesn’t want her anymore before fleeing to New Orleans for much-needed rest and relaxation.
All she wants is jazz piano, beignets, and to sail the Mississippi. What she gets is Sol DuMont, a whirlwind affair, and a hands-on education in sex, power play, and pushing limits.
All her limits.
REVIEW
This is THE best erotic romance I’ve read this year. (I read quite a bit of erotic romance, it’s kinda my thing.)
Trying to encapsulate all of my FEELS about this book into a review is gonna be difficult.
It’s basically this…
- I ADORE the characters. They’re real, broken in different ways and the voice in each character’s chapter is perfect, clear and you know whose head you’re in without confusion.
- The setting made me able to viscerally remember NOLA, I loved it when I visited and this made me long to do so again.
- The descriptions were fantastic, so much so that I could almost feel and taste everything.
- The steam. Holy hannah the STEAM people.
- The hilarity. I had to invent a new rating system for this one. I don’t laugh or cry easy folks, I just don’t. This freaking book and the author’s sly wit had me almost spitting out my drink (or choking on it) no less than 27 times before I got smart enough to stop drinking or eating anything when I was reading it. I laughed out loud so loudly so many times I’m sure the neighbors heard me, through three feet thick brick walls and lots of space. It hit the number of 5 ‘dropping my tablet on my face scores.’ I’m truly in awe of this author’s sheer TALENT.
- MMC is a switch divorcé and openly bisexual.
- The cast of side characters is JUST as well developed as the mains, showing an attention to detail that is really wonderful to see in erotic rom (because, honestly, some authors just concentrate on the sex.)
- This last one… the female main character is short and fat.
I had no damned idea how badly I needed a book with a fat female main character until I read it, even though that was part of why I bought the book.
I one-clicked it when I saw the author saying it had a bi male MC (something I don’t see enough of and that the story had kink.)
In some ways, I’m still a bit traditional, even my own main characters tend not to be all of me.
I’m fat. I’m not used to feeling sexy, wanted, needed, desired.
The way Sol percieves Rain… it’s so perfectly beautiful. Every single bit of his desire for her is unfeigned, it’s real. It makes me feel like it’s possible to be wanted and desired FOR my fat rather than IN SPITE OF, my fat.
I didn’t know how badly I needed to see that in my favorite genre.
My heart still feels so happy about it. I teared up, and as I’ve said I don’t cry easy.
I absolutely LOVED the language used to describe Rain, from cupcake to full, shapely, thick, dimpled, heavy… all of it. I loved it soooo much. I’m gushing and I don’t even care. I need more of these books in the world. MANY MORE.
This takes romance from the boringish same old same old it’s been for me for a while (no, not all romance, I still have my fav authors who do it for me, but they’re few and far between) and skyrockets it into the stratosphere of awesome.
It’s so very important to me that this book exists in the world. It’s beautiful, it’s needed, and I loved it so much I’d buy the paperback (multiple copies for gifts) if the publisher had been smart enough to put it out in paper.
Idiots.
I’ll buy E-copies instead but honestly, I’d love a signed copy of this book, it’s THAT important to me.
Other things I loved about it that I can share without spoilers, there are pop culture references that my 40 year old self recognized and loved! I giggled at a lot of those.
The kink is blazing hot and REAL. (I can tell when someone is just playing at writing kink. It’s ALWAYS a damned disappointment. Honey, the only kind of playing going on in this book is the kind that leaves delicious soreness afterwards.)
The corgi. (I really want a corgi and can’t have one cause I’m allergic, but he’s so stinkin’ CUTE!)
On page discussion of how important communication is with regard to kink.
On the page after-care that made me soooo happy.
Talk of birth control (my only caveat being that I REALLY wish there’d been on the page talk of STD protection before sex, that kinda made me go ick, I need that to be in my books or for there to be an addressed reason why it isn’t, like people are now immune to diseases or something.)
The end and what Rain did. I can’t say more than that w/o a spoiler, but I absolutely cheered!
There is so much to love here in this book my readers. It’s well worth the cost and the time investiture to read it.
I only live tweet stuff I really like.
SCORES
READABILITY: 5 
(It’d be ten if I could) Jeebus fockwit, I dropped my tablet on my face five times and didn’t want to do things like cook dinner, work or do dishes while these characters were in my mind. I stayed up WAY past my bedtime reading it. I’m still glowing with the happy after finishing it.
ARCS: 5 
Loved the story, romantic and character arcs. So very well done.
CRAFT: 5 I caught four uses of passive voice, in a 257 page book, so that’s not a lot at all and it didn’t mess up the story. Don’t think I saw a single typo, dropped or goofed up punctuation mark at all. The author’s voice draws you right in and her skill with characterization, grouding in the five senses and plot development is fantastic.
Go on and
You must be logged in to post a comment.