The Trouble With Sexy by Codi Gary
She’s got a hot new makeover . . . and a boss to seduce! For prim and proper Ryan Ashton, sexy has always been an elusive quality. But with a little help from a new friend, she just might snag the one man who can set her seductive side loose.
Ryan’s got a thing for her boss but she’s pretty sure he doesn’t know she exists. Well, he DOES, because they’re best friends but she wants more than that. She dresses very plainly and is covered from neck to ankles in wool most of the time. She doesn’t have the greatest self-esteem either as her previous boyfriends have basically told her she’s boring.
Ryan finally takes matters into her own hands and asks an acquaintance to help her get her sexy on. It proves to be a success and Gregg is all over her like white on rice. Little did Ryan know that Gregg has had a tendre for her for quite a while. When stubbornness and jealousy get in the way, though, this couple may not make it past Valentine’s Day.
This was a cute story. At first I wasn’t thrilled with Ryan’s character. I thought she was TOO hard on herself and the pity party she was having in her head really began to grate on my nerves. When she went out with Gracie, however, and got her makeover the confidence she was exuding was really wonderful. I loved how Ryan put Gregg in his place when he started getting jealous and accusatory toward her new look. While I didn’t love the argument I liked the resolution.
Love Me Tender by Cheryl Harper
Stuck in a king-size suite with a sexy man . . . What more could a girl want? But for Julie Dillon, being snowed in at an Elvis-themed Memphis hotel with Luke Pearce can’t mean anything but trouble. Too close for comfort gets close enough to taste.
Julie is on a flight after a business trip and is not thrilled when Luke, a coworker in her father’s law firm, sits next to her. She likes Luke but when he had asked her out not long after he started at the firm she turned him down flat thinking he just wanted an “in” with her father. She has since regretted her decision but hadn’t been able to tell him. Julie and Luke have had kind of a strange contentious relationship since then. Now they get grounded in Tennessee when their only half way home because of a blizzard (and on Valentine’s Day, no less) and Luke is kind enough to let Julie share his room as there’s not another to be had. While they’re snowed in they learn a lot about the other and they certainly like what they learn.
Another cute story that has a definite Elvis theme to it – being stuck in Tennessee, especially Nashville, they just couldn’t get away from it. I thought that the story was a good getting to know you type story but I personally didn’t think there was a big punch to it. It was nice and it told the story but there wasn’t really anything that particularly stood out to me. There was a big gesture at the end of the book that was done as an apology but the couple got a bit snarky with other characters and it kind of ruined it all for me as I thought the story would have been fine without it.
Love, Guns, and Heart-Shaped Chocolate by Jaclyn Hatcher
Her best friend’s brother is shaking up her Valentine’s Day! Katie Quinn just wanted to spend the day watching Jurassic Park and eating chocolate. She certainly had no intention of running into Logan Cross—or running for her life! Suddenly caught in the crosshairs of danger, Katie and Logan must get together to find a way out.
Katie is done with men. She’s spending Valentine’s Day with wine, chocolate and a good movie. She wasn’t prepared to run into her best friend’s twin brother at the market. Logan overhears Katie’s conversation with his sister, Tracy, and when Katie makes plans to save Tracy from an incredibly bad blind date Logan invites himself along telling Katie that it’s because he’s worried about his sister. In all honesty Logan wants to be around Katie because he’s had a thing for her since he was 15. Logan and his best friend Will head off with Katie to get Tracy but Will’s girlfriend is making his life hell because he’s late. Katie agrees to drop Will off at his girlfriend’s house but when they get there the girlfriend goes crazy. She ends up pulling a gun on the three of them and next thing you know they’re running for their lives. Granted, it’s a more exciting way to spend a Valentine’s Day but it’s not great when you think it might be your last.
This was a lively and exciting end to this anthology and definitely unexpected. When Katie meets Logan in the market the last think I expected to happen was to have them running for their lives but that’s exactly what happens. It’s kind of a matter of terror bringing people together but in this case I think that it worked. Logan had had feelings for Katie for a long while and while Katie didn’t really know Logan all that well, even though he was twin to her best friend, she soon realized that there was more to him than just a math geek.
While the story wasn’t all that deep as the couple is on the run for the majority of the novella, it was well written, fun and funny. A very different sort of Valentine’s Day story but a very good one nonetheless & my favorite of the 3 stories.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
