Truly, Madly, Deeply, by Vicki Lewis Thompson

I also read a Vicki Lewis Thompson's Truly, Madly, Deeply. It was a B+.

Ten years ago, Dustin Ramsey and Erica Mann shared their first sexual experience in the back seat of Dustin's red Mustang. And the interlude was...a complete disaster. Now Dustin is facing a huge challenge -- taking over the family business. But before he does, he has to get past his one and only failure. His plan: to find -- and seduce -- Erica again. Only, this time he's got to do it right...

Erica is amazed when Dustin shows up on her doorstep. True, he has a business proposition for her, but the look in his eye tells her what kind of proposition he's really offering.... Erica has come a long way in ten years. Her newsletter, Dateline: Dallas, has gained her a reputation as the Dr. Ruth of the Dallas area. So if Dustin thinks he can just walk in and seduce her senseless, he'd better think again. Because Erica intends to seduce him first....

It was excellent. As I said of LT's other Blaze that I've read, Acting on Impulse, this is exactly what I wished the line would be like when I heard about it... not just regular Harlequins with longer love scenes (or with more ridiculous "provocative" plot contrivances, as many turned out to be), but books with a more modern, less conservative outlook.

I liked Erica, and actually identified with her, to a point. Anyway, she could easily be one of my friends, which is what I meant when I said this book felt modern. Often, when reading Harlequins, the 20something heroines seem to be more a middle-aged author's idea of what today's young singles are like than what I know in real life. And remember I live in a Latin American country, which surely has to be more conservative than urban USA! Well, Erica didn't feel unreal, she was a perfect young city girl, down to her worries about the environment and her attitude towards virginity.

Dustin was swwt, just the kind of hero I like. I loved that he was no infallible business tycoon, and that he was a bit insecure about whether he would be able to run his company successfully. I more or less agreed with Erica when she thought they probably wouldn't suit, not having much in common, but the way the author solved this, by having them realize how much they actually did have in common through an e-mail correspondence, was great. It did convince me that they were right for each other.

The love scenes were really steamy (I especially liked the very fun scene in his truck!), but I also liked the actual plot of the book. This did not feel like just scenes strung together. The Dateline: Dallas newsletter Erica published sounded fun, and having Dustin floundering a bit about his business was refreshing.

The only thing that I didn't like here was the ending. Too much focus on babies, and how they immediately wanted to have kids, basically. This, incidentally, was the same thing that bothered me about Acting on Impulse. Also, I didn't care for the very obvious setup of the next story in the series (which is by another author). It felt tacky.