Guest Review: Hidden Desires by Elizabeth Lapthorne

Lily has to admit she’s desperate. She’s in New Orleans on a two-week vacation, she made the trip especially for Mardi Gras, and she doesn’t have a mask. Everything she’s found seems wrong.As a last-ditch effort, she enters a small shop and finds the perfect mask until it shows her visions of herself getting ravished by a masked highwayman. When that highwayman turns up at the Mardi Gras bash, she knows the chemistry between them could only lead to one place.The only thing that remains hidden between them is their true desires.

Lily has taken a vacation to New Orleans and wants to have a wild one night stand with a hot man. She thinks that everyone should have the Mardi Gras experience at least once in their lives. While looking for a mark to wear with her costume she comes across the perfect one. She puts it on in the resale shop and has a vision of herself with a man dressed as a highwayman. She’s intrigued by what she sees and buys the mask.

When she gets to the Mardi Gras party she meets a highwayman. He seems familiar, and not just from her vision, but she doesn’t dwell on it too much. Lily and her highwayman end up back at his hotel for a night of hot sex. When Lily wakes up at one point she sees that the man behind the mask is Andrew, a man from her work.

Andrew has been in lust with Lily since he started working at the same place. He’d been wanting to ask her out but the schedules had never seems to mesh. When Andrew overheard Lily telling a co-worker about her trip to Mardi Gras he figured it was the perfect time to get her right where he wanted her. But Lily’s not sure how to react to the revelation that this man followed her and has more planned for them than she’s ready to accept.

This was a cute story. I love costume parties and of course Mardi Gras is a big one. Andrew and Lily were great together and it their time back in his hotel room was very steamy. But I just kept thinking of questions…for example: Lily was at a party thrown by an old friend of hers. How did Andrew know where she was going to be just by overhearing Lily say “Suzy”. New Orleans is a big place! There were others too and It made me wonder how into the story I was if I could stop and think about that kind of thing while reading.

While I liked the characters in the book they weren’t three dimensional enough for my liking. I know this is a novella so there is only so much time to do that but I just felt like I couldn’t get to know them. There was also a small part of the book that was seen through the eyes of the mask – as if it were its own entity. It wasn’t creepy or anything but I didn’t feel that its point of view was consistent enough throughout the story.

Rating: 3.25 out of 5

You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place

This book is available from Ellora’s Cave. You can buy it here or here in e-format.