Review: Fun Collection
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 23, 2013
This is a fun collection of stories,  although I found myself annoyed by some things in the 'first' by Elizabeth Naughton.Her couple are supposed to be long-parted teen lovers. He went off in a heroic fashion leaving her to 'better herself'. Really he left her in a pithole, did not answer any of the letters she wrote him trying to impart some pretty effing life-changing news.She, in true noble princess fashion, slaved her way alone to become a famous actress, despite her wealthy, controlling parents. He became a macho security expert. And through all this, they're back together, and ... here's the part where they lapsed into fairy tale land - she finds out he married another woman, started a family, but she's NOT ANGRY at him, even tho she herself had that chance ripped away in horrific fashion, and he's the reason she's never been able to connect with or fall in love with another man.Instead, she apologizes to him every time she has an emotion, and tells him he has things to forgive her for, too.Um, any woman who has the ambition it would take to go from nobody to famous actress is going to have some pretty strong self-will. She didn't get there skipping down a flowered path with the Tin Man and Lion. Do I believe she could get past her anger? Yes. But first she has to experience it. If she doesn't, she doesn't feel real to me and it's eye-rolling time.Laura Wright gives us a deliciously inked-up New Adult story with her First Ink. The heroine and the hero are believable (Because who isn't an idiot at 17?? We all have things from those years we'd give a lot to go back and re-do) and deeply sympathetic.Katie Reus's ex-SEAL and chef heroine, neither of whom have yet had the courage to confess their feelings for each other, are a yummy combo. Serve 'em up.Joan Swan shows us the Mexican/American border drug trade from the viewpoint of two agents ... whose tasks are complicated by their feelings for each other. Throwing them into a sex shop undercover just makes it fun!