Saturday, January 5, 2019

Review: Dare Me Once (Angel Fire Falls #1)

Dare Me Once (Angel Fire Falls #1)

by Shelly Alexander

Blurb:
Love is a risk worth taking in this sizzling romance about secrets and second chances…

Scarlett Devereaux’s life on the Gulf Coast went from riches to rags so scandalously fast that she barely had time to kiss her Jimmy Choos goodbye. Now, with a new alias (Lily Barns), a new budget (tighter than a pair of Spanx), and a new job on the vacation island of Angel Fire Falls, she’s daring to reinvent herself.
Single dad Trace Remington is devoted first and foremost to raising his young son, who has Asperger’s. With flying his floatplane and salvaging his family’s island resort too, he has time for little else. His brothers think he needs a break from his all-work-no-play lifestyle, so they goad him into action. In response to their dare, Trace asks a sexy tourist for her number, only to discover afterward that she’s the resort’s brilliant new hospitality manager.
The sparks of flirtation soon ignite into a flame too hot to ignore. But Lily and Trace both have pasts that threaten to tear them apart. Now, they’ll need to admit their secrets to each other…or risk ending their relationship before it really begins.
Themes: Contemporary
Rating: 3.5 stars
Heat Rating: 
Review:
Shelly Alexander begins a new series about a family of resort owners and a woman that comes into their lives with a secret and a mission to make their resort all it can be. I have enjoyed many of Shelly’s series in the past and when I read the synopsis of this story I was instantly drawn to it. Scarlett aka Lily has given up her life in New Orleans to travel to the Pacific Northwest to a small resort town in the hopes of escaping the stigma of her father’s crimes. When she arrives at her new job, she immediately knows she has her work cut out for her, and when she meets an attractive man she pushes him away, determined not to let a man distract her from her goals. Unluckily for her the man that she pushed away was her one of her new bosses.  Trace Remington is drawn to the beauty and sweetness that Lily exudes, but he has too much on his plate to deal with a relationship right now, especially with his newest employee. The more time they spend together, the closer they get and the harder it becomes to deny the passion that flares whenever they are in one another's company.  More importantly are the emotions that are being affected just as strongly as their hormones, especially as Lily has also fallen in love with Ben, Trace’s autistic son.  I enjoyed getting to see Trace and Lily circling each other and fighting the attraction to one another, but more I loved seeing them falling in love and letting go of their hang-ups.  Lily obviously has some serious issues and secrets that she needs to work on, ones that almost implode their young love, but as she comes to terms with her past, she will learn that her inner resolve and resilience are titanium strong.  She was a sweet woman, one that could have been a total bitch with her upbringing, but luckily she had some good influences that kept her from being too spoiled.  While I can’t say she didn’t make mistakes, she certainly did her best and tried to make amends for those mistakes and even mistakes that weren’t hers to own.  Trace is the type of guy that sometimes just drives me a little nutty; he had one bad relationship, granted it was really bad, but to let that color every woman and relationship to come in his eyes seemed a bit excessive to me.  So when he was such an ass to Lily in the beginning it made me hate him just a little, but overall he was a good guy, a great father, and a funny guy. I liked the side characters and the setting of the story and I’m very much looking forward to the rest of the series and seeing the types of women that grab the other Remington men by the balls.  The beginning of another good series to be sure.
*ebook provided by publisher (via netgalley) for the purpose of an honest and unbiased review.  No compensation was provided.

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