Review: Great start to a new trilogy
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 26, 2013
We begin with Kat, former rich kid now upmarket baker, at a wedding where one of her cakes is taking centre stage.  Sloane Michaels walks in to the room as a guest and she is mesmerised by his commanding presence and so, it seems,  is pretty much everyone else.  He makes quite an entrance and this is how he is described.....He looked like Death. Very sexy, very intriguing Death.He's intrigued by her, thinks he recognises her from somewhere and prowls over to her but she's skittish and manages to squirm away and runs to her gay best friend Kellan who is waiting in the kitchen for her.  As she and Kellan try to leave they fall victim to an attempted carjacking and Sloane, an ex-UFC champ, has followed them out and wades in and saves them.  As he attempts to get to know her in the aftermath he offers her his `Plus One' proposition - they agree not to date, to be each other's Plus One at significant social functions and to have hot sex!  No ties.  No commitment. No emotions - purely a convenient agreement.So, this is how it all kicks off and I have to say that there's a whole lot else going on too.  The plot is multi-layered with Kat, her previous trauma, her current PTSD, her pushy family, her devious ex and Sloane, ex-UFC champ turned business man, his lucrative and successful chain of gyms, his difficult past, the death of his sister, his dying mentor and his overwhelming desire for vengeance just to mention a few which is why I was kind of surprised that this was released as a novella at just over 130 pages long. There's more than enough here to flesh out a full-length novel.The result of this is that the author has to indulge in a lot of telling rather than showing and it's a little hurried because of this. I would rather have seen everything play out in a novel probably three times a long because there's a whole lot of story to tell here and it's a story that I was really enjoying.I very much enjoyed Kat & Sloane and the pulsating sexual chemistry that was building between them.  There may only be one actual sex scene but they share a couple of other scenes where they get close and pull away and this helps to build the anticipation well.  I really did love Sloane - a tough, protective fighter that has fought his way up from rock bottom to be the successful man he is today and he never forgets where he came from and this is evident in the way he's helping others in a similar situation he used to be in.Kat is a victim of her previous trauma, caged by fear from an attack she can't remember,  suffering almost continuously from PTSD and flashbacks.  There are people who would rather that she never recalls that fateful day.  So, besides the intense relationship between Kat and the delicious Sloane, there's a whole lot of mystery going on too which is only partly revealed in The Proposition and the final chapters and the conclusion set up the series beautifully and I'll definitely be going back for more.3.5 stars erotic romance