I picked up this book because I wanted to give another chance to this author. The first book I picked up by Ms Kelly was She’s no Angel, based on Casee’s review. While I liked the voice and writing style, the book was a DNF to me, simply because I felt the story was going nowhere. I can’t remember where I read the synopsis of Heated Rush, but I knew I wanted to give this a try. Luckily, I remembered picking it up 😛
Heated Rush by Leslie Kelly
published by Harlequin Blaze in July 2008
You know you’re hard up when you have to buy a date…
But Annie Davis’s big family reunion is looming, and she needs a stand-in man fast or she’ll never hear the end of it. Any gorgeous guy will do. Her solution? The drop-dead-sexy man at the charity bachelor auction. His good looks and blue-collar background make him perfect for her! Or is he?
Sean Murphy has a bit of a surprise for Annie. Not only is he not blue-collar, he’s actually a sophisticated European entrepreneur, one who’s made pleasuring women an art form. And he wants to permanently pleasure Annie! But Sean knows that if she discovers his secret, their wickedly delicious liaison will be over. Lucky for both of them, he’s learned enough tricks to keep Annie distracted for a long, long time…
Genre: contemporary romance
Series: Auction gone wrong, book #1
Series: Auction gone wrong, book #1
The Story: The back blurb is a very good synopsis, so I won’t spend too much time recapping the book… but here’s the gist of thing. Annie is the owner of a day-care centre in Chicago and she’s in a pinch. She’s been dating Blake, the supposedly divorced father of one of her charges, only to find out that he’s still married. Now, she has nobody to bring to the family reunion and she doesn’t want to go back to the farm dateless… First, she’d be pitied by the family members and then, fixed up with strange men by the whole town. In addition, her parents are still expecting her life in the big, bad city to go home and for her to come home… which is not happening. Thus, she needs someone to play ‘pretend.’
Sean Murphy is an Irish businessman who ran away from home when he reached majority to get away from under his father’s thumb. In his youth, he has been – for lack of a better term – a gigolo. Nowadays, his business is thriving and his views about women, jaded. Still, for some reason, he participated to the auction… only, whoever put together the program has his and the fireman’s profiles mixed up and instead of beind acquired by a rich, sophisticated and perhaps older woman… he gets Annie.
My Opinion: Okay, where to start? Let just say that when I read the three words ‘charity bachelor auction,’ I just had to have this book LOL 🙂 What can I say? This is another of my favorite contemporary romance plotlines, but it’s not one that is used frequently. I’m really happy I came across Heated Rush because it was really well written and I enjoyed it a lot.
First, I really liked the characters 🙂 Annie was a good heroine. She wasn’t as naive or weak as I thought she was going to be. Instead, she was strong and didn’t need anyone to defend her. She was also smarter than I thought she’d be (given the idea she had LOL). All in all, I thought she was very genuine… nice and simple. Sean was a bit of a surprise to me. I didn’t expect him to be a gigolo, although that was his past occupation, not his current. Thus, it explains his experience in women and his jaded and cynical thoughts. Although, they all disappear once he meets Annie and realized that she’s not what he expected. Other than his past occupation, the man is really the dream man 😛 He and Annie clicked from the start and their chemistry was hot. In addition, thanks to some twists in the book, Annie and Sean match each other more than I expect.
So I really enjoyed the characters as well as the story. In fact, the story wasn’t what I expected. Annie and Sean actually had time to get to know each other and go on dates before having sex or showing up at Annie’s parents place. I admit that I was a bit disappointed about the family reunion as it turned out to be a very small part of the book. However, the rest of the book definitively makes up for it. The ending was very thoughtful as well. Of course, Annie learns about Sean’s past and although she has no difficulty accepting it, Sean does. I really liked how Sean came to term with his past.
My only complaint about this book is that I don’t understand why Sean decided to join the auction. First, he doesn’t need money anymore and he wasn’t going to sleep with the winner unless HE was really attracted. So why join at all? I guess I’ll never get an answer…
I’ve also discovered while writing this review that Heated Rush is part of a 2-books series. The first book is Slow Hands and is about the fireman who was mistaken for the gigolo and who was sold for 25,000$ While reading Heated Rush, I always wondered what happened to him… I guess I will find out 🙂
My Grade: 4.0/5
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