Wicked Burn by Beth Kery

Good news. It got better.

And our number of the day is F-I-V-E.

Cindy Blurb: Vic and Niall are neighbours (I see Niall and in my brain I pronounce is Nee-ail - painful) who for some reason start having banging sex. I mean wow.

So there's sex.

More sex.

Yep, more.

Oh, some talking! No wait. Those are instructions for where exactly Niall's legs should be.

Okay.

Oh no he didn't! Oh, yep, he did and Niall's fine with it.

Any plot? Finally.

Vic is a playwright and a huge gruff bear - grrrr. He was also dumped years ago by a woman who tore his insides out. Not literally cause he really wouldn't have survived. You get it.

Niall is I *think* a museum curator or something like that but her job isn't important because her personal life is a tragedy. No really. Tragic. It's what kept me turning the pages.

I KNOW! You'd think the sex would have kept me reading but not so much.

I don't want to spoil the story for anyone so that's all the plot you get - except there's sex, there's a blow-up, some good ol' hiding, then the chase, then the reckoning with lots of sex.

I'm calling this book romantica although there is nothing on the front, back or spine that says this. It says contemporary romance. Hold on. Berkley Sensation - maybe that's their sexy line.

I think this is probably milder than some of the romantica out there but still, I was a wee bit surprised. Yes, eyebrows were in the hair line at times.

I have mentioned before that it's the sexual tension that is important and yes, I'll be pissed if a door slams in my face just when things are getting good.

With that in mind, I find that sexual tension goes right out the window when two characters have sex in the first few chapters of the book. So that's one of my biases. But I'm glad I read most (and then skimmed to get to plot) of it to get to the meat of the story.

Things that didn't work for me:

1. You can use more than 12 words in a conversation. Try it. You might discover shit doesn't land on you.

2. A heroine who has had violence done to her is maybe not going to be open to certain things the first time the H/H have sex. After certain revelations in this story I felt that maybe a few things that happened in the bedroom were far from realistic.

3. The overly alpha male with submissive female. I need the female to fight back even if it's just a bit but I think that would run towards another personal bias.

I'm going with a C .

I've read romantica if Shannon McKenna fits the bill but I pretty much hated the one I read. Bad book! Bad!

I decided to try another author and see if romantica is something that works for me. I'm thinking not particularly but I'll probably try a few more authors before deciding if this genre is for me or not.

If you've never read romantica and you want to try it I would say this is as good a place to start as any.

Now, I wonder what I'll pick up next.

Seriously, I have no clue.