Tag Archives: Book in Series

Pretty In Pink Slip by Jennifer Skully

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A copy of this book was provided by the author for an honest review at The Romance Evangelist.

Thank goodness the next book in Jennifer Skully’s After Office Hours hot contemporary romance series is here to pull me out of my current reading and reviewing slump. Pretty in Pink Slip gives fans of the series not only another super hot and sweet love story, but a nice resolution to the ongoing concern involving the purported villain of the series.

Ivy Elliot is the single mother we met earlier in the series when she was given more responsibilities in the front office after her friend Jordana was promoted from HR Admin to HR Manager. Ivy is sweet and hard working, but of course it’s never enough for Rhonda, the demanding woman in charge of HR. When Ivy decides it’s time to ask for a raise more in line with all the work she’s been doing, Rhonda blows her top and fires her on the spot. But when the company’s CEO steps in to make things right, Ivy will have the chance to decide where her happiness lies: with a possible financial windfall, or with a second chance at love she never saw coming.

Brett Baker has worked hard all his life for the great business success he now enjoys, but at the cost of his marriage and family life. He dotes on his grown daughter and young granddaughter but it’s still a house filled only with regrets he returns to each night. Sure, there’s that lovely young admin Ivy that he sees in the office each day, but the idea that they could be something to each other only occurs to him as she’s about to leave for good. Now Brett and Ivy must deal with their business conflicts, their not insignificant age difference, and Ivy’s unwillingness to trust another man as they work their way toward a beautiful happy ending for everyone.

Every book in the After Office Hours has been a winner for me so far, but Pretty in Pink Slip might be the best one yet. I loved seeing how Brett and Ivy were just starting to become aware of each other when Rhonda’s actions forced their hand, making every step in their romance even more fraught with tension than it might normally be. As usual, the other characters in the office are here for moral support, and we get a great deal of insight into Ivy’s past by spending time with her mother, who comes across as awful at first, but soon warms into someone we can all understand. Best of all, the whole Rhonda thing which has been building since the very first book ends in a way I hadn’t expected, but thoroughly enjoyed. I don’t know if there’s going to be another book in this series, but if not, it’s ended perfectly with Pretty in Pink Slip.

 

Midtown Masters by Cara McKenna

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In a world full of often implausible erotic romance tropes, Cara McKenna’s books have always been my go-to for sexy, intense, and *believable* stories with people who could be your friends and neighbors. Her first two books in the Sins in the City series featured sexual triads born first out of desperation and then out of convenience, and each was a wonderful satisfying read. But Midtown Masters, the third and final book, might be the best of them all, as it provides the explicit HEA that the others only implied.

Suzy and Meyer are what you’d call “friends with benefits for money” – they have mind-blowing sex on camera for paying customers, but the love between them is strictly platonic. Each has needs the other can’t meet, but for the time being, the money is good and the sex is great. But when Suzy’s curiosity about a new customer gets the better of her, what happens next upends everyone’s lives, and for the better.

Here’s my big confession about Midtown Masters: I am such a big fan of Cara McKenna that I grabbed the review copy without ever reading the blurb. All I had to know was that it was her final Sins in the City book and I was in. So when “Lindsay’s” true identity was revealed early on, I gasped out loud. (Yes, really.) Now I’m not suggesting you avoid the blurb, but it’s a credit to the writing that it works just fine if you haven’t. In any case, all three characters are so well drawn and the premise of the story set up so simply that just following them down the path to their happy fate was a joy, even when they were all fully clothed. As much as I’d loved the other two books, the lack of angst in Suzy and Meyer’s approach to sex (if not relationships) was such a relief once they realized the extent of “Lindsay’s” needs. I’d say more, but I don’t want to take away the pleasure of discovering it all for yourself.

If you’re looking for realistic MMF erotic romance, check out all three of Cara McKenna’s Sins in the City books, and most definitely Midtown Masters, the crowning conclusion to a truly wonderful series.

BRUTAL GAME by Cara McKenna

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This review may contain spoilers for WILLING VICTIM. You could try to read BRUTAL GAME as a stand-alone, but don’t. The two connect together too well to only read one.

It’s no small task to write a story that people love. But to then, years later, write a sequel that is equally well received is an even more unlikely outcome. And yet BRUTAL GAME is that mythical unicorn – a follow up to the widely praised and highly influential novella WILLING VICTIM that not only lives up to the original but gives it extra meaning by extending and expanding what was a brief encounter to a full fledged Happily Ever After.

In WILLING VICTIM, a young woman saw a man who intrigued her, made the first move, and was rewarded with an experience so unexpected, so viscerally intense, that both she and the readers were forever changed. What she shared with the man might be romance, at least for the moment, but could become love, if only we could see what happened next. Now readers clamoring for more Laurel and Flynn have exactly that in BRUTAL GAME – the rest of their story and how they found the HEA we always knew they deserved.

BRUTAL GAME shows us both the best and worst moments of what Laurel and Flynn must confront before they can be truly happy together as a real couple, and it’s tougher and more complicated than anything they’ve dealt with before. The games they play in bed brought them together, but it’s real life and death that could tear them apart. We see what plagues them both in private moments and how they learn to communicate their emotional needs as well as their physical ones. It’s a tough read in parts, but entirely genuine and moving, with an ending as worthy as what preceded it.

If you were a fan of WILLING VICTIM, you have to read BRUTAL GAME. It’s the rare sequel that justifies the existence of sequels.

A Love Affair to Remember by Jennifer Skully

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A copy of this book was provided by the author for an honest review at The Romance Evangelist.

Hooray, it’s the next book in Jennifer Skully’s new After Office Hours hot contemporary romance series! Regular readers of this blog may recall that the first book in this series – Desire Actually – was one of my favorite reads this year. This new book – A Love Affair to Remember – picks up not long after the previous one, telling the story of how two people get a rare second chance to be together after making a terrible mistake five years earlier.

We met Gloria King in Desire Actually, when she helped that story’s heroine get a promotion and office she deserved, earning the enmity of the company’s HR VP in the process. Five years earlier, Gloria had succumbed to a single night’s temptation with an attractive co-worker, and has been paying the price ever since. She quit her job and confessed to her unforgiving husband, taking all the blame for the wreckage of her marriage. Now divorced and living far away from where it had all gone wrong, she’s living a life deprived of love when the man she couldn’t resist and never forgot waltzes back into her life.

Parker Hunt was in a struggling marriage when he and Gloria enjoyed a single night of mutual pleasure while traveling for work. Unlike Gloria, he kept quiet about their tryst but still ended up divorced when his wife announced she was leaving him for another man. Parker knew he’d deserved what happened but hoped one day to reclaim the woman who still haunted his dreams. Now that he’s found Gloria, he’s going to make sure they finally get the happy ending they couldn’t have before.

One of the reasons I love reading this author is because her characters are frequently those who don’t often get their own HEA in current romance, namely people over forty. Gloria is in her late forties and Parker is slightly younger, but their age really only comes up in the context of having children, and after the end of her marriage, Gloria has already resigned herself to remaining childless. This author also handles the touchy topic of infidelity quite well here, which is remarkable considering both the main characters cheated on their respective spouses with each other years before the events of this story take place. For some readers, that would be a deal breaker from the start, but for me they both showed they’d regretted their actions and knew they’d been in the wrong. Indeed, so much of this story is showing how Gloria had punished herself much more severely than anyone that for me to do the same would be unfair.

Meanwhile Rhonda Baker, the HR VP who tried to ruin Jordana’s life, is now gunning for Gloria, and her machinations became increasingly annoying for me, even though she does help provide the impetus for Gloria’s epiphany about her need to stop punishing herself over Parker. It was made clear why Rhonda is seemingly allowed to run roughshod over fellow employees but I hope she’ll have her own day of reckoning in a future book.

Overall, it was great to be back in the offices of Brett Baker’s Silicon Valley startup, and I enjoyed seeing more of how the company’s front office gets their work done, as well as the scenes with Jordana and Grady from Desire Actually enjoying their newly public relationship. With A Love Affair to Remember, Jennifer Skully has upheld the excellence she set at the start and continues to keep me excited about getting to read the next book in the series.

Downtown Devil by Cara McKenna

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Although the erotic romance trope of a ménage a trois (or more) has become more common of late, most still tend to exist in the fantasy world of fictional towns full of threesomes, foursomes, and beyond, so I tend to get really excited any time I can find one set in a slightly more believable version of reality. The first book in Cara McKenna’s Sins in the City series – “Crosstown Crush” – was one of those few truly excellent books which unflinchingly explored the consequences of a hetero couple seeking out another man to be their occasional sexual partner to fulfill the husband’s cuckold fantasy.

Now with her second book in the series – “Downtown Devil” – McKenna explores another variation of the ménage a trois setup with three previously uncommitted people who initially come together only for sex, only to discover that what they thought they wanted was something else entirely. Like its predecessor, this story features two men and a women, with one man acting as the catalyst to bring all three together. But “Downtown Devil” goes one step further, showing us how sexual desires aren’t always neatly defined and how a genuine love relationship can be found if we are brave enough to reach out for it.

Clare is turning thirty and tired of putting her happiness on hold. When she spots Mica in the coffee shop, her initial impulse is to ask him to model for her upcoming gallery photo exhibit featuring striking looking people of mixed race. But when Mica makes it clear he’d like to have sex with her, Clare throws caution to the wind, determined to live in the moment just this once. Their relationship is more booty call than it is model and photographer, but Clare is determined to let it play out until Mica leaves town at the end of the summer, if he doesn’t start to tire of her first. But then Mica brings his equally attractive roommate Vaughn into the bedroom with them, and that’s when things get complicated.

What I loved the most about “Downtown Devil” was how it never judges anyone in the story, no matter what happens. There are no true villains here, only real human beings with all their frailties on display. Clare might think she’s protected her heart, and Vaughn might think he’s protected his sexual identity, but only Mica is truly safe for he never allows anyone close enough to hurt him. The temptation for me to condemn Mica was strong, yet when Vaughn shared his knowledge of Mica’s past with Clare, I couldn’t help but understand. Ultimately it’s Clare and Vaughn who experience the most emotional growth, and seeing them bond in the face of Mica’s behavior was a special joy for me as an emotionally invested reader. But even Mica shows signs of improvement by the end of the story, which closes on an optimistic note for everyone’s future.

“Downtown Devil” is just as unflinching and level-headed a look at what can happen when a third person joins a couple for sex as “Crosstown Crush” and I loved it just as much. Together they make Cara McKenna’s Sins in the City series my favorite of the year so far as I impatiently wait for the next book to follow.

Desire Actually by Jennifer Skully

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A copy of this book was provided by the author for an honest review at The Romance Evangelist.

If you follow me here or on Twitter, you should already know that Jasmine Haynes is one of my very favorite erotic romance writers. What you may not know is that she also writes slightly less explicit but still wonderfully steamy romances under the name Jennifer Skully. I’d already been meaning to check out her books under that name, so when the opportunity came along to review the first book in her new After Office Hours series, I was all over it.

“Desire Actually” gets its name indirectly from the movie “Love Actually” but even if you’re not a fan of that particular movie (I’m not) you shouldn’t let that keep you from reading this wonderful story of how its hero’s lessons in desire also taught its heroine the power of true love.

Grady Masterson is an honorable man both in business and his personal life. Yet he never realized how his business had overtaken his life until his wife asked for a divorce via email. Now that he’s decided to fight for his marriage where it went bad – in the bedroom – he needs someone like Jordana Davis to teach him about the power of sexual desire.At first it seems lucky for Grady that desire all Jordana wants about after a life filled with disappointment in love from everyone she’s ever counted on. But when explosive desire threatens to upend their lives in and out of the bedroom, it’s love that saves them both from settling for anything less.

Knowing that a Jennifer Skully book would be less sexually explicit had me cautious at first with “Desire Actually” but my concerns quickly evaporated by Grady’s first lesson in desire with Jordana. Together they are the perfect blend of hot and sweet as we see Grady not only learn why his marriage failed, but eventually why it was never going to work in the first place, and why someone like Jordana should be his future instead of trying to fix the past. As for Jordana, we get to revel in her stories of past desire without judgment as both she and we discover why Grady is the one guy who can teach her how to trust in love again.

As with her Jasmine Haynes stories, Jennifer Skully is quite adept at writing a hot secret office romance, providing all the background characters we need to provide the underlying sense of danger at the possibility of discovery. And as a romance reader who does not want to read about cheating characters, I especially appreciated how it was made clear that Grady has been and continues to be physically faithful to his wife for as long as a potential reconciliation exists. Some readers might not care about such niceties but I do, and that helped make “Desire Actually” an even better read for me than I had anticipated. I can’t wait to read the next book in this series.

Review: Mastered by Maya Banks

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Warning: This review contains spoilers for Mastered. The major one is in a spoiler space section, but if you don’t want to know any actual details about this book, stop reading now.

Some people on the Internet seem to think that we amateur book reviewers love to write nasty negative reviews about books just for the evil fun of it. The reality, however, is entirely the opposite. And when the book in question is by a beloved author, the feeling isn’t so much glee as it is intense sadness and disappointment.

It is with that feeling of great dismay that I am writing this review. Mastered is the first book in the new Enforcers series by Maya Banks, one of my all time favorite authors. I’ve read and enjoyed so many of her erotic romance series that I jumped at this review opportunity even though this blog is still technically on hiatus until next year. And yet Mastered is such a huge departure from what I have come to rely on in a Maya Banks erotic romance that I’m still reeling at how very wrong it went for me.

The premise of Mastered is simple and familiar:  innocent heroine crosses paths with dangerous dominant hero who must have her at all costs. Evangeline was seduced and abandoned by a no-good jerk and now she’s at Impulse, the hottest club in town, to prove she’s over him. But when the no-good jerk shows up to physically confront our heroine, the all-powerful club owner Drake Donovan comes to her rescue, only to capture her for himself until it all goes horribly wrong at the end of the book.

Wait, what? you say. Horribly wrong? Well, yes. Because Mastered ends on a wrenching cliffhanger and you’re going to have to wait until the next book is released to get the rest of Evangeline and Drake’s story. This information was posted on the author’s Facebook page earlier this year, but it isn’t anywhere in the book listing or promo materials. To her credit, she has included a lengthy explanation/apology at the end of the book, and I recommend you read it before deciding whether or not to continue with the story itself.

But honestly, for me the incomplete story wasn’t the main reason Mastered was such a disappointing read. There are two more compelling reasons, one of which appears in a spoiler tag further down. But the other one permeates the entire book so thoroughly that even if the story was complete, I’d still have problems recommending it.

For in Mastered, our heroine Evangeline is presented not as a normal human adult woman with both positive and negative attributes. Instead she is the perfect combination of Pollyanna, Marilyn Monroe, and Mother Teresa that no man (other than the no-good jerk who took her virginity for kicks) can resist. She projects a relentlessly positive attitude no matter how dire her situation, yet is constantly in denial about how every man (except that one guy) is drawn to her innate goodness and powerful (yet entirely innocent) sexual allure. She immediately agrees to give up her impoverished yet independent life to a man she’s known for about fifteen minutes, one whose first interaction with her is to engage in heated oral sex in his office after rescuing her from the no-good jerk. And as every man (other than the first guy) continues to fall at her feet throughout the story, every woman is compared to our heroine and found wanting.

This, in a nutshell, is the main problem I had with Mastered —  that Evangeline is constantly presented as the epitome of acceptable womanhood and every other woman in the book (other than her mother in a brief cameo) is presented as not worthy to kiss the heroine’s feet. Indeed, the first time we see our hero, he is forcibly removing a woman from his club who had bribed one of his workers to sneak her in so she could throw herself at the hero, calling her a skank for good measure. Then when the no-good jerk who deflowered and dumped our heroine appears at the club with his new squeeze in tow, she’s just as awful and unsavory as the woman tossed out by our hero only moments earlier.

This insidious attitude toward other women would annoy me in any romance novel, but in a Maya Banks book it was especially disappointing. In so many of her other erotic romance books, notably the Sweet series and Breathless series, the heroines all had great women friends who were just as worthy of being liked and admired, and who often ended up as heroines themselves. But here in Mastered, other women who are not blood relatives of the heroine are denigrated and tossed aside when they’re no longer needed. The worst example of this occurs just after one of Evangeline’s former “best friend” roommates warns her in no uncertain terms not to get mixed up with the hero. Instead of the hero sharing his own doubts about whether he’s capable of being a good person for the heroine (which we already know about from his internal monologues), he declares the former BFF to be a “jealous bitch.” Yet the heroine wouldn’t have even met the hero if that same “jealous bitch” hadn’t magically acquired a VIP pass to Impulse and given it to the heroine. This distinct lack of respect for any women who aren’t the heroine is simply not what I’ve come to expect and enjoy in a Maya Banks book, and I’m still distressed about how prevalent it was in this one.

There are a lot of other reasons why Mastered didn’t work for me, such as how every deadly henchmen on the hero’s staff instantly declares himself ready to save the heroine when (not if) the hero screws things up with her, or how both the hero and heroine spend more time in long internal monologues on how they feel about their situation than they do actually sharing those feelings with each other.

But all those pale to the other reason why I cannot recommend Mastered, and as the catalyst for the cliffhanger, it’s the biggest spoiler of the book.

 

SPOILER SPACE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The hero has unsavory gangster types coming over to his apartment for a private meeting so he convinces the heroine to go out with her ex-roommates for the evening to keep her safe. But when her ex-roommates understandably don’t want anything to do with someone who had ditched them completely since she’d met the hero, the heroine decides to surprise the hero by cooking a full gourmet dinner for him and his associates. After all, he never told her they were too dangerous for her to meet, so why shouldn’t she? When they arrive to find her waiting, the hero decides the best way to keep her safe is to not only verbally assault her in the worst possible way, but also to force her to fellate him in front of the other men.

That’s right – the hero sexually assaults the heroine to protect her from additional sexual assault by others.

Then after they all depart to eat dinner elsewhere, the heroine leaves the hero to take a job at a hotel run by the sister of the doorman at the hero’s building, the doorman being yet another random man who has immediately fallen for the heroine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

END SPOILER SPACE

This was the last straw for me and Mastered. Your mileage may vary, but everybody has their hard limits on what is acceptable in a romance novel, and that crossed the line for me in no uncertain terms. If the rest of Evangeline and Drake’s story had been in this book instead of continued in a future one, I still wouldn’t have read past where this book ends. Thanks to the nature of this cliffhanger, I have absolutely no interest in how the hero and heroine recover from what has happened between them. I can only hope that future Maya Banks books will get back to what has always made them great for me before – a hero and heroine with a genuine loving relationship in a world where both men and women are valued equally.

 

Review: It’s A Wonderful Wife by Janet Chapman

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Janet Chapman is an author I’ve been reading off and on for a while now, and although her heroines often nearly cross the line for me in adorable wackiness, I’ve enjoyed reading most of her contemporary romances. I read the first two books in her Sinclair Brother series back when they were on the Scribd ebook subscription service, and liked the premise of the beloved grandfather setting up his three single grandsons to find true love with the women of his favorite area in Maine.

Unfortunately this third and final book in the series – IT’S A WONDERFUL WIFE – takes all the wacky adorable charm of the others and turns it up to a level so high that it was all I could do to make myself finish reading instead of throwing the book (figuratively) against the wall in frustration. Everything I loved about the other books is made nearly unbearable here, especially the laughable attempt at a suspense plot which ended up being told more than shown, including its completely unsatisfying resolution which seems to be an offscreen afterthought.

Our hero Jesse Sinclair is jealous of his brothers’ happiness with their own adorably wacky Maine wives so he decides to build the perfect family home in an isolated wooded area in the hopes that he’ll soon find the perfect wife to fill it with the perfect family. This leads to his impromptu meeting with Cady Glace, her adorable wackiness attracting him instantly even as he discovers she’s already engaged. But all is not as it seems with that, and her supposed fiancé, and which one of them actually designed the house he’s having built in the Maine woods.

If this sounds at all convoluted, then you get an idea of how this book went for me, and how I became increasingly frustrated even when I was already making allowances for a certain level of unbelievability based on my experience with the previous books in the series. Add to that the need to keep track of dozens of secondary characters, some old and some new, and an extra dollop of magical realism at the very end, and it’s no wonder IT’S A WONDERFUL WIFE left me more annoyed than entertained. I would normally say that you should read the other books before attempting to read this one, but honestly, just read the other books and leave this one be. I’m not sorry I read it because I did like Jesse Sinclair and was happy to see the previous couples turn up one more time. But if you’re not prepared to constantly roll your eyes while keeping a spreadsheet updated with a constant parade of additional characters, then IT’S A WONDERFUL WIFE is probably not the book for you.

Review: Begging For It by Lilah Pace

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This review may contain spoilers for ASKING FOR IT. You could try to read BEGGING FOR IT as a standalone, but don’t. It won’t be half as good that way.

Earlier this year when I read ASKING FOR IT, I declared that not only was it the best book I’d read all year but that the only book that could possibly come close to being as good would have to be its sequel, BEGGING FOR IT. And it’s true. Everything I’d hoped to find in this book was there, and the ultimate happy ending for Jonah and Vivienne is even sweeter after they triumph over everything thrown in their path to stop them.

The story in BEGGING FOR IT picks up not long after Jonah has walked away from Vivienne to save himself from their shared need to act out the past violence in their lives as part of their sexual relationship. Still, the desire and love between them can’t be denied, and soon they’re back together with the understanding that they must proceed with caution and plenty of therapy to help them stay on a mentally healthy path. When sudden violence in their community drags Jonah in as a suspect, the national coverage gives Jonah’s evil stepfather the opening he’s been wanting to ruin Jonah for good. In an average romantic suspense, this plot device would be leveraged merely for final confrontation of the evil stepfather. But what elevates BEGGING FOR IT is how this development allows Jonah to confront his own emotional damage in the same way Vivienne did in the previous book. And in the same way Jonah helped save Vivienne in ASKING FOR IT, here in BEGGING FOR IT she saves both him and their future together.

If ASKING FOR IT was a time bomb ticking toward an inevitable explosion, then BEGGING FOR IT is a live hand grenade ready to go off at any minute. The knife-edge tension starts from the very first page and never lets up for a moment until the very end. Even early scenes that seem innocuous before the completely happy ending are actually anything but, especially on a second read. It’s rare that I completely love any romantic suspense story the first time through, let alone ever bother reading a second time. For me BEGGING FOR IT was that good – the exception that proves the rule. And together with ASKING FOR IT, it’s easily the best romance of the year for me so far.

Review: Crosstown Crush by Cara McKenna

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One of the things I love best about Cara McKenna’s books is that she is never afraid to tackle subjects that others might tend to shy away from, and always manages to provide insight along with a riveting read. CROSSTOWN CRUSH is no exception, as it tells the story of a married couple trying to embrace the husband’s cuckold fetish without endangering what they already have together.

Samira and Mike agreed when they were married that they would remain child-free so that the focus of their marriage would stay only on each other. When Samira discovered Mike’s deep desire to believe she was sexually betraying him, it nearly split them up. Now that she’s accepted his need, the next logical step is making the fantasy a reality. But when they find the perfect man to be their third, reality is more than any of the three of them are ready to handle.

The idea that a truly loving husband would find sexual satisfaction in his wife’s infidelity is not a mainstream kink (if such a thing exists) and reading about it is obviously not for everyone. Yet I thought CROSSTOWN CRUSH handled this touchy subject with respect and acceptance for its characters. The love between Samira and Mike is absolute, and what they do for each other made that obvious for me even when it seemed their relationship might not survive. And while the man they choose to bring into their lives might seem too perfect at first, he’s just as much a fully realized person as they are, with real feelings and conflicted emotions. As the three of them dare to embrace their shared need, we aren’t pushed to judge them for what they’ve done and how they handle it – only to observe their actions and understand their motivations as best we can.

If there’s any criticism I have with CROSSTOWN CRUSH, it’s that we didn’t get more of what happened between them from just after the moment of crisis to the Happy For Now epilogue. I would have loved reading several more chapters to see how they got from there to here. Without that, it made sense to me that there wouldn’t be a full-fledged HEA, simply because there wasn’t enough there to support one that soon. I’m still hoping that we’ll get more of Mike and Samira and Bern in a future story, even if it’s just a sentence in passing to let us know they’re still together and happy. But even if we don’t, I still recommend CROSSTOWN CRUSH for anyone ready to dramatically expand their notions about sex, love, and fidelity.