Anything But Vanilla by Liz Fielding

4 1/2  Columns: an excellent read
Harlequin Kiss

April/May 2013

Available for pre-order from Amazon.com

 Amazon UK

The Book Depository

Blurb
Sorrel Amery is determined to make her summer event the talk of the town, and she knows just the way into people's hearts-champagne sorbet! It's the perfect strategy... Until the ice cream parlour's owner runs off, leaving Sorrel's plans melting faster than a sundae in the summer sun. 
All Sorrel wants is to get back into her comfort zone, but when the gorgeous Alexander West arrives to help pick up the pieces her life gets shaken up more than ever before! Especially as this globe-trotting adventurer is determined that nothing in Sorrel's life should ever be boring old vanilla again...

REVIEW

When Alexander West flies halfway across the world to rescue a close friend’s ice-cream parlour, he makes three alarming discoveries – the business has been issued with an insolvency notice, said friend has disappeared and… gorgeous, sexy businesswoman Sorrel Amery is in the shop’s stockroom, raiding the freezer.

But Sorrel is no thief. As the CEO of Scoop, it’s her job to deliver ice-cream experiences to special events — like the celebrity studded tennis party currently top of her agenda. If she doesn’t get the ices she’s ordered, her reputation will be in ruins.

So when Alex announces that he wants the stock back in the freezer and her off the premises, she takes a determined step forward, intending to search the kitchen for the rest of her order.

Only, Alex won’t let her past. 

She tries pleading. But he’s adamant that nothing can leave the premises until he’s completed an inventory of the assets. In a last ditch attempt to change his mind, she offers a wide-screen, Technicolor, smile and murmurs 'Alexander.. this is important.'

Her action prompts him to ask in a low, dangerously soft voice “How important?”

The next moment he’s kissing her —and she’s making no attempt to stop him. Just the opposite in fact. Totally mesmerised, she arches towards him, lifting her arms and sliding them round his neck, “her body wanting more, wanting him.”

Abruptly he breaks the connection. Thanks to her inexplicable meltdown she’s managed to confirm his belief that she’s the type of girl who thinks she can get whatever she wants in business by flirting.

He couldn’t be more wrong. Sorrel has chosen career over romance and is totally focused on building her business. She does not do lust at first sight.

Her reaction to his kiss marked one of those rare occasions when she’d lost all sense and given into her mother’s wayward genes. A totally  uncharacteristic lapse, given that  Sorrell is determined not to be like her mother (a serial single mother with a propensity for rough-hewn travelling men.) Sorrell wants a man with drive and ambition. Somebody who’ll always be there for her – somebody like her secure, safe and totally dependable mentor, Graeme.

Alex might be overwhelmingly sexy with his “thick brown hair that brushed his shoulders and flopped untidily around his face…and the kind of skin deep tan you didn’t get from two weeks on a beach.” But how can she possibly allow herself to have a crazy fling with a man who clearly follows a beach bum lifestyle and will be gone in days?

Yet despite everything, she experiences such a strong sense of physical attraction that she’s sorely tempted to forget safe and dependable and seize the day in a “live-now-pay-later physical response.”

Seize the day is the book’s theme. Sorrel is locked into a vanilla lifestyle — seeking security and safety in everything she does. But until she learns to be less in control of her life and emotions, ditch her five-year plan and trust her instincts, she’ll never be truly happy .

And emotionally distant, detached, uninvolved Alex, who’s never had a home and is  focused exclusively on exploring distant jungles, illustrates a different side of the theme.

Unlike Sorrel, Alex has no trouble seizing the moment.  His life is full of fresh and exciting opportunities. But instead of experiencing these moments on his own, he needs to learn to open himself up to the warmth and fun of sharing them with another person.

Each leads the other towards emotional change, culminating in Sorrel giving into the attraction and seizing the moment in a night of passion with Alex.  She knows full well that he’ll leave her in a few days, but is done with playing safe with her heart and her head.

Alex proves  the more resistant one. Although he revels in Sorrel’s warm considerate emotionally connecting nature, and has come to a point where he can share confidences with openness and trust, he still backs away from emotional involvement  and returns to his work in the rainforest determined to remain heart whole.

At this point it seems as though Alex will never change his belief about the type of life he wants or the person he is, but in wonderfully emotional final chapter, he experiences a shattering epiphany that totally changes the direction of his emotions and brings about the necessary happy ending.

This book was an absolute pleasure to review. The pacing is smooth (back story is kept to a minimum until well past the second half of the story ) the pages are packed with sizzling sexual tension, deeply experienced emotion and crisp, concise dialogue.

4 1/2  columns (I’d have liked just a hint at the start of the story that the hero’s present life felt a little empty — a suggestion of restlessness.)

Ballroom To Bride And Groom by Kate Hardy

4 columns: a recommended read
Mills & Boon Cherish

Mar 2013

ISBN 9780263900941
Amazon UK

Harlequin Romance

Feb 2013

ISBN: 9780373178629
Amazon US  Barnes and Noble

 

Blurb:

TV presenter Polly Anna Adams has spent a lifetime living up to her name. Suddenly single, Polly hides behind her cheery facade and enters a celebrity dance competition. Her partner? None other than gorgeous but wary professional dancer Liam Flynn.

Liam has learned the hard way to keep his heart on lockdown, but Polly's joie de vivre puts a spring back in his polished step. As the competition heats up, so does their unstoppable attraction. If only they could convince themselves their hot tango passion is just for the cameras….

Review:
 

Smile-and-the-world-smiles-with-you Polly Anna Adams loves her job as a children’s TV presenter. Until her fiancé, the show’s producer, cancels their wedding and brings his new girlfriend onto the production team.  Polly can’t bear the thought of working with her replacement, so walks out of her job—even though a recession means she’s unlikely to find another one soon.

A door opens when her agent clinches her a spot on Ballroom Glitz (think Dancing with the stars/Strictly come dancing) partnering gorgeous ex-ballroom champion Liam Flyn.  Polly fears her natural clumsiness will be her downfall, but convinced the show is a stepping stone to another presenting role, she’s is determined to think positive, try her hardest — and smile her way through.

Liam is equally desperate for her to succeed. A year ago he lost his marriage, his career, his home and his dreams when he was badly injured in a car accident. Experts predicted he’d never dance again, but he’s fought to prove them wrong.  His new dream – to land a job as a choreographer on Broadway – is almost within reach, but first he needs to prove himself by taking his celebrity partner all the way to the final of Ballroom Glitz.  Cue external conflict when Polly’s lack of co-ordination and clear inability to pick out a rhythm seem certain to jeopardise his plans.

Both Liam and Polly share the same internal conflict – fear of  betrayal and  abandonment, coupled with a marked reluctance to trust

Due to his ex-wife/professional dance partner leaving him for another man shortly after the accident, Liam has decided he’s better off on his own and needs to hold himself apart emotionally. When he finds himself strongly attracted to seemingly capricious Polly, he hides his normally kind, supportive nature behind a façade of cool professionalism.

But Polly has a strong backbone under all the sweetness and light, and won’t allow him to treat her so brusquely. A clash ensues resulting Liam apologising to her and seeing her in a different light.

Liam quickly realises that Polly’s super-bright smile hides low self esteem and is a brave attempt to fake it until she makes it –in all areas of her life. She sees herself as far too girl-next-door and clumsy to be a glittering ballroom princess and this affects her ability to grasp the steps and techniques Liam needs her to learn.

He fixes that by taking their practice session to a private candle-lit ballroom in Vienna, where he presents her with a beautiful frothy dress, then whirls her round and round the dance floor in a floaty Viennese waltz, kissing her as they spin. The steps come effortlessly and for the first time ever, Polly feels like the fairy ballerina she always wanted to be as a child.

They kiss all the way back to the hotel, and Polly wanting him more than she’d ever wanted anyone in her life, can’t resist his invitation to share his bed.

 But by the next morning Polly has managed to convince herself that once Liam goes to new York, there’s no way she’ll fit into his life. To protect herself from the inevitable heartbreak, she makes the decision to push him away now before things get too complicated. Liam’s disappointment at her reaction leads him to retreat into cool detachment and re-affirm his vow to hold himself apart..

The second half of the book sees them attempting to focus on their career plans—plans that will end with them living thousands of miles apart.

Although both Liam and Polly have apparently identical emotional issues, they deal with them in opposite ways-- and it’s these differences that enable them to gradually change each other.

Liam believes he’s the only person he can rely on and he can’t trust anyone else. Although this belief gradually changes during the course of the story, he retains a strong sense of self-belief which enables him to teach Polly to have faith in herself and transform from clumsy tomboy to ‘gorgeous kittenish flirt.’

Due to a traumatic incident in her teenage years, Polly has learned to look on the bright side, hide her true feelings and  ignore the difficult stuff.  Embedded in this flaw is a great strength – her warm, optimistic nature. And it’s this  which causes Liam to eventually see that keeping himself separate and pushing people away won’t bring him happiness.

I found the pacing of this story extremely smooth – due to Kate’s short punchy sentences and very linear character thoughts. (Each and every action was beautifully motivated leaving the reader in no doubt at any time as to why the characters were behaving as they were.)

My only quibble is some of the scenes seemed a touch repetitive (practice sessions, dancing on the show, facing the judges, basic dance tuition) but considering the setting of the story it would have been very difficult to avoid this.

Overall, this is a beautiful romantic story filled with tender emotion, sparkling (and sometimes very novel) dance scenes and an ending that will make you cry.

 Athena