AUTHOR: Brenna Lyons
PUBLISHER: Loose Id
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 31k)
GENRE: Contemporary erotic romance
COST: $4.99
Robin has been grieving her fiance’s death for almost two years. She’s finally decided to follow through on one of the dreams they’d shared for a child, but she’s not really interested in artificial insemination. No, she wants David, his brother, to be the baby’s father, and she wants to conceive the old-fashioned way…
My blurb above doesn’t do this story justice. The one on the publisher’s website is far more enticing, so don’t use mine as a guideline. This story might not be much on the surface, but it was more than worth it.
Robin works for the construction company owned by her dead fiancé's family. Though she’s gone on without him, she’s never replaced him in her life. In the nearly two years since his death, his brother David has become her best friend and confidante, and when she decides she wants to have the baby she and Zach had always planned on, the only person she really considers is David. For his part, David has been in love with her since before her engagement. He’s kept his feelings to himself only because his brother got to her first. In all this time, he’s been waiting for her to see him, so when she makes the offer, he considers it briefly before jumping at it. Thus starts their affair, kept secret from everybody they know because a) it’s just supposed to be about sex and getting pregnant, and b) they both think the family will react badly if they find out the truth.
If this sounds like it’s just an excuse to have a lot of sex, well, you’d be right. But here’s the thing. There’s a sweet vulnerability underlying all of those really hot scenes that transcends the simplicity of the plot. Robin and David are both so afraid of doing the wrong thing, of wanting too much, of hurting the other, that a whole new layer to their sex comes through. It’s more than enough to make me forget how basic the scenario is, or that there is just so much sex in it. Robin and David are good people. They deserve a couple of weeks of genuine happiness.
Not a lot of time is spent with secondary characters, though those that are there are developed well enough for me not to be jarred out of the story. I didn’t care for the epilogue, as it felt very anticlimactic, but I understand why it was there. Otherwise, the entire effect is utterly smooth. The author’s voice isn’t all that earth-shattering, but that’s not the point in this. This is all about Robin and David’s coming together, in every possible way. It succeeds, sweet, hot, and heartwarming.
| Readability | 8/10 – Solid and sweet |
| Hero | 8/10 – Hot and wonderful |
| Heroine | 7/10 – Her grief felt uneven, but otherwise, I really liked her |
| Entertainment value | 8/10 – Oddly sweet and vulnerable in spite of the constant sex |
| World building | 7/10 – Enough to make it realistic, but nothing overwhelming or remarkable |
| TOTAL: | 38/50 |
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