Review: Sexy and Emotional Story
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 25, 2010
When Rori Simon left home ten years ago, she was overweight, had acne, wore glasses and bore the weight of the censure of her mother and her own self-doubt.  Now she's back, confident and sexy and while more than one man has taken notice, it's just one that she's interested in: Jude Callahan, her high school crush.  The problem is, Jude's a player who doesn't want to commit to one woman and when Rori tries to turn the tables on him and make him chase her, she gets burned.Enter Zach Helm, who becomes the man Rori didn't know she deserved.  Zach introduces Rori to the D/s lifestyle, their relationship flourishes beyond her wildest dreams and they find happiness together.  It's only when Jude sees how deeply Zach and Rori love each other that he finally realizes what he lost when he pushed her away, how much he loves her and how badly he wants her back in his life.This is a re-worked, or maybe just enhanced version of a book that originally was released in 2005.  I had actually read the earlier version and remember loving it back then, so it was interesting to read this one and pick out what differences I could, given what I was able to remember.  The result I think is that Dane gave Jude some more depth, the heat was turned up on the erotic elements and the story packed a bigger emotional punch overall.I admired Rori's rather fearless attitude towards her relationships, friendships and especially her sexuality.  She'd taken a lot of crap when she was younger and now that she'd had ten years to see the world and find herself, she wasn't about to take it anymore.  She wasn't coy about enjoying sex; when her relationship with Jude became unhealthy, she ended it; when she knew in her gut she could trust Zach, even if she'd only known him a short time, she submitted to him.  The D/s aspect of their relationship is insanely sexy, yet also remains true to Rori's character; just because she submits to him in the bedroom, she keeps her own boundaries outside of it and they work together in creating a balanced, real relationship.  My not-so-well kept secret for anyone who's seen my Kindle is that it's loaded with Dane's books and one of the reasons is that I love the way she writes her women.  They're generally honest with themselves, they act like grownups and whatever their other hangups may be, they aren't ashamed to admit they enjoy sex.Obviously, given the title, this is a story about discovering something, losing it and through a twist of fate, getting a second chance at making it work.  This is such an emotional rollercoaster, full of a whole lot of smoking sexiness, wild and crazy attraction, tender love, heartbreak, sweet friendship, hope, simple happiness and more smoking sexiness.  You'll certainly need a box of tissues.I definitely recommend this book, and if you like this, I suggest you try Dane's wonderful series of Chase Brothers books (four of them) that were also released sort of around the same time as this was originally:Giving Chase (The Chase Brothers, Book 1),Taking Chase (The Chase Brothers, Book 2),Chased (The Chase Brothers, Book 3)andMaking Chase (The Chase Brothers, Book 4).  They all have Kindle versions as well as print.Her newer series of linked books about a family are fairly similiar in tone too, although leaning a little heavier towards the erotic, they're also very emotional and feature really strongly written female leads.Laid Bare,Coming Undoneand the soon to be releasedInside Out.