His Private Pleasure, by Donna Kauffman

TITLE: His Private Pleasure
AUTHOR: Donna Kauffman

COPYRIGHT: 2002
PAGES: 256
PUBLISHER: Harlequin Blaze

SETTING: Contemporary New Mexico small town
TYPE: Category romance
SERIES: Sequel to Her Secret Thrill, but only slightly related. Stands alone.

REASON FOR READING: I got it because I'd liked Her Secret Thrill. Plus, I'd read somewhere that this one had a heroine who was unapologetical about her past sex life, and that sounded very daring back in 2002, I guess.

Having control is good...

Enough is enough! When Liza Sanguinetti realizes that her past relationships have been as shallow as her Hollywood lifestyle, she decides it’s time to get a better grip on reality. But maybe her attempt at celibacy at the same time is pushing it! Alter stumbling into Canyon Springs, New Mexico, on an extended vacation and getting an eyeful of the sexy town sheriff, she knows this is one vow she’ll be delighted to break....

But sometimes losing control is even better!

Dylan Jackson, an ex-vice cop, is a man with little time for Liza’s big-city ways—he leFt his taste for that kind of woman back in Vegas. . . or so he thinks. Yet Liza’s need for control in all situations piques his libido, and soon the battle to dominate begins.. starting in the bedroom.

THE PLOT: Liza Sanguinetti has given up her life as a celebrity PR in Hollywood, tired of the shallowness of it all. She doesn't know what she wants to do next, and is currently just driving around the country on a kind of soul-searching trip.

She takes a break from her travelling in the small New Mexico town of Canyon Springs, when she catches sight of the very sexy sheriff, former Las Vegas vice cop Dylan Jackson. Liza initially intends only to spend a night with Dylan and then continue on, but when an old case of Dylan's follows him all the way from Vegas and he requests her help, she's happy enough to prolong her stay.

MY THOUGHTS: I'm really not into "sophisticated city girl finds meaning in life by moving to a small town and marrying the sheriff" stories, but this one avoids most of the pitfalls that kind of story often shows. The people in Canyon Springs are pretty sophisticated themselves (though Dylan's mother's going-ons are of the dreaded "zany" variety) and Liza is never demonized, not for coming from Hollywood and not for having a normal sexual past. And believe me, though she does decide to stay in Canyon Springs, she won't be staying there to wash the hero's shirts. So in this sense, this book was quite good.

What I wasn't so crazy about was how the book felt sexed-up and that didn't really leave much space for the falling in love part. Dylan and Liza fall into bed at the very beginning and then keep at it throughout the whole book, but though Kauffman writes her sex scenes well, I was never fully involved in them and kept wanting to get back to the story. I didn't feel like I knew her characters enough, and by the end of the book I wasn't completely convinced that they were in love. Plus, the whole "control" issue that the back cover makes so much of never really got off the ground.

MY GRADE: B-.