Title: Carnal Ecstasy
Author: Lissa Matthews
Publisher: Ellora's Cave
Genre: Erotic Contemporary
Book Blurb:
The minute Carrie meets tattooed, bad-boy bartender Dallon, her decision is made. He’s the one, her ticket to freedom and a new, independent life. She’s tired of dictates and zero dates and following the path laid out before her by her well-meaning-but-completely-out-of touch-with-her-reality religious parents.
Dallon sees the buttoned-up, full-of-curves woman outside the grocery store and feels the flames of hell licking at his heels. When she asks him for directions to the large, nearby university where she’s starting work, his gut-twisting lust for her doesn’t diminish, but those flames start to singe his tough-as-nails hide.
With Dallon’s promise of not sleeping with anyone associated with the university his father is the dean of about to go up in smoke, Carrie takes the first exit off the Heavenly Highway straight onto Sin Street. She wants Dallon to teach her all the things a good girl should never know, and she won’t take Hell no for an answer.
Reader Advisory: What Dallon does with a beer bottle may be illegal in forty-eight out of fifty states…and at least two territories.
My Review:
This is a sequel to Ms. Matthews book "Simple Need" and I really enjoyed reading this. The story was hghly erotic and kept me turning the pages. I sincerely hope that Ms. Matthews pens additional stories for these characters, especially since she introduced the third owner of the bar business in this novella.
Dallon is the hero of this story and he is an interesting study in contrasts. He's the son of a preacher who has spent most of his adult life rebelling against the lifestyle that his father had planned for him. He's tattoed and is a 1/3 owner of a bar and of a tattoo parlor. He doesn't have relationships with members of the opposit sex, just one night stands and most of the time the women are gone before he even wakes up on the morning, he doesn't make breakfast for anyone. He's content with his life and isn't really looking for anything else. Fortunately for him fate has something else in mind for him and it was very interesing watching him come to terms with the changes that would result from a chance meeting in a grocery story parking lot.
Carrie is the heroine of this story and she too is an interesting study in contrasts. She's the daughter of two highly religious people who have raised her to be a very good girl. Carrie has been raised to follow thru on plans that have been set out by her parents and she has come to town to work at the local Christian College that just happens to be run by Dallon's dad. She meets Dallon in the parking lot of the grocery store and that chance encounter has a profound and lasting effect on her. Carrie realizes that she's highly attracted to Dallon and that he would the exact opposit of what her parents would want for her. She has to make a choice, continue in the footsteps planned by someone else or take a chance on herself and get to know who she is on her own.
As Dallon and Carrie interact in this book both of their lives change, Carrie learns to ask for what she wants and learns that it's not a bad thing to be in touch with who she is as both a woman and as a sexual person. Dallon's lessons are a little more subtle in that he doesn't know that he is learning that he no longer wants to be alone, he just knows that suddenly he wants Carrie and that he wants her to be around all of the time. I sensed that Dallon wants a permanent relationship with Carrie but I do know that he at least acknowledged that he wasn't stressed out about the fact that she would be staying with him in a way that he has not allowed any other woman. Part of Dallon's charm seems to be that he's sort of a "take things as they come" kind of guy and he's certainly taken to Carrie.
As I stated earlier, this is a very erotic book and I have to say regarding the author's warning about what Dallon does with a beer bottle - I will never, ever, look at a beer bottle the same way again!
My Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
I'm lovin' Lissa's books. I can't wait to read this one.Great review.
ReplyDeleteOh wow, what a great review for an awesome book. Yeah, the things Dallon does... makes me want to.. well.. I can't say that here. Whew! Ms. Lissa's writing is awesome. Thank you for showcasing it with an awesome review!
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