Genre: Erotic Romance 18+
~Blurb~
When you have a thrice-a-day Starbucks addiction, a love affair with Louboutins, and an apartment in one of the most expensive cities in the world, the last thing you need is to lose your job. But that’s what happened to me—or what will, unless I can pull off the impossible: find Eli Murphy.
Eli, notorious playboy and New York City high roller, is the founder of the newzine where I work. He's been MIA for three years. But I think I can find him. If I do, and I get his story, I can keep my job.
What could go wrong?
Ask me when I’m tangled in my lies—and his bed sheets.
Ask me when we’re running for our lives.
~Book Review~
4 Stars
Tara Daniels is a reporter about to be laid off. Her final assignment, and last hope for continued employment, is locating Eli Murphy, former editor and co-founder of the publication she works for and a successful author. Eli’s “disappeared” and become a recluse, but no one knows why.
I’m sort of a sucker for the premise where two people are stranded together, probably because it tends to leave little room for OW/OM drama, which this installment thankfully has none of, so I enjoyed the set up here.
Told via Tara and Eli’s dual first person POV, Eli’s chapters sport a little extra authenticity….edge…freshness that perhaps comes from a male author’s writing perspective writing a man. Eli describes things in a decidedly male way and he, at times, responds minimally but with just enough to come across cool and mysteriously guarded.
Of course, both Eli and Tara are keeping secrets from each other. Eli for very valid reasons; Tara, well it’s clear from the start she’s digging herself into a hole with lots of complications. I’m not sure at times that she’s not a bit naïve and headstrong or at the very least she has really lousy instincts for a reporter.
The suspense angle is developed well though; I’m definitely looking forward to more details on how Eli ended up in his situation. The romance veers more on the instalust side. While the two do get to know each other, their interest in each other is primarily sex (well aside from Tara’s assignment). A lot of this perhaps stems from both characters admittance that they haven’t had sex in a while. I’m hoping to see the forming of some stronger attachments in the next installment to seal the deal on the romance aspect.
Not to be dismissed though, their sexual encounters are HOT!
“In and out…deep in, and shallow out. She whines when I urge her fingers fully out, lifting her hand so I can taste her.”
*fans self* Now I also must admit I was slightly distracted by two things.
One, the duo doesn’t use condoms when they are together, and they’ve only just met hours before! I did appreciate the disclosure that Tara is the only girl to grace his hideout sheets, and while guessing by the math, Eli’s been celibate almost two years, he used to indulge in a lot of one night stands. Specifically it was the “for the whole first year I lived here, I went looking for sex every few nights, and it was never hard to find,” comment that was hard to brush aside. TMI Eli!
Two, how the hell did the food not burn?! For real, I kept expecting the smoke alarm to go off somewhere between an in or out thrust. This was suspense that I doubt was intended. These two can seriously pack a lot of masturbation, oral sex, and intercourse into one half hour because that’s all the longer it is till dinner is ready when they pass the time with a variety of steamy indulgences. Call me floored when she raved about the meal because I expected that deer meat to be as crispy as the bacon it was wrapped in.
Anyways, this is an engaging tale that kept me interested from start to finish. It moves at a steady pace and is a promising start both for this series and for a debut author. This part does end on a cliffhanger though so I look forward to part two. (Oh and hopefully an appearance by Herman.)
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~Part 2~
~Book Review~
2 Stars
Aside from a few hiccups, I enjoyed Finding Eli, which needs to be read first, and had high hopes for this one. But the problems start right out of
the gate. Instead of picking up where the cliffhanger left off,
this installment opens with a prologue set 3 years prior. But the delay isn’t the real problem. Eli
spends half of this prologue monologuing about the girl he’s been set up with
for the evening, specifically that he’s going to sex her up latter and then the
sex, unprotected sex I might add, is shown...
“I pull out and come on Daisy’s ass
as she lets out a final moan…” –Eli
He goes on about other unsavory sexual details, but the
important element here is that THIS IS NOT THE HEROINE from the previous installment;
this is another woman from three years ago! So why are we even hearing about
this??? Not only am I utterly skeeved out about Eli poor safe sex practices, distracted
as I now contemplate the most likely venereal disease that Eli has contracted, and
reminded of his manwhore attitude, but those few lines totally diminished, if
not obliterated, his previous encounters with Tara who is really the last
person he’s been with, but is not the person most fresh in the reader’s mind.
“I am so mother fucking fucking
stupid. Why? Just so I could get my dick wet!? Fuck! Fuck me, and fuck my
stupid fucking dick.” –Eli
Well I couldn’t agree more, Eli!
Too bad that proclamation is in the PRESENT in regards to sleeping with Tara,
the heroine, and not Daisy!
Including OW sex scenes (especially
detailed ones) in a romantic suspense like this is like prattling on about your
last hook-up while on a date with someone else. It’s unnecessary and
unappealing. It doesn’t make the hero look like a stud; it makes him look like a
walking STD. And it’s utterly counterproductive to the connection he’s supposed
to be establishing with the heroine to the reader. I swear, many pages later
and I was still trying to bleach my brain of Daisy!
But let’s get back to the other reasons why Eli is
stupid, as he admits and other people tell him. He’s supposed to be an award
winning writer, except the moron is sufficiently illiterate when it comes to
the whole ‘Any resemblance to real
persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental’ and the limitations of
that disclaimer. And that was a big disappointment too because the first
installment sets up an intriguing premise with Eli
in a bit of a Salmon Rushdie predicament. Unfortunately though, every time the
story drifted to the past to explain Eli’s big story, Eli just came off looking
dumber and less sympathetic.
This installment is also heavy on the action-adventure
and violence and lacking on really any romance between Tara and Eli. It was
also very hard to tell if Tara means anything to Eli as the narrative makes it clear
that Eli largely thinks with his dick.
Told via Eli and Tara’s alternating first person POV,
this concludes the two part tale. The series started out with a good deal of
promise, but ultimately the lack of character growth and especially Eli’s characterization— that of a dense, self-involved
grown man still lamenting the loss of his king bee status and manwhore days—
was a big letdown.
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Jake Irons is the pseudonym of a male author living in Portland. He writes erotica at his desk at a stuffy corporate law office.
