1.5-2 stars--The Seduction of Kinley Foster by Lisa Wells

There was a lot of cute and cheeky with a side of sass going on in The Seduction of Kinley Foster as the heroine--who is an aspiring author--arrives at the romance writers convention and finds out the guy she used to crush on as a teen and that broke her heart is attending too and is an agent...and he's managed to read her manuscript! Has some things to say about it too that'll get a girl all riled up. I was having a pretty good time with it. I mean, hello! enemies to lovers, the forbidden fruit of a best friend's little sister, and a book convention full of readerly authorly peoples. I mean. So much love! But as things went along I struggled more and more with pretty much everything.

See. Ian told Kinley she couldn't write sex scenes. Flat out...her characters didn't have sexual chemistry and the sex scenes were lackluster and she'd do better sticking to sweet romances. And ooo that set things off! The storyline is a pretty played out one--a booking mishap lands them grudgingly sharing a room, arguments and tension kicking off a bet over the heroine having little sexual experience and the hero offering his man bits for use.  It's been done many a times but can work well. But--I just didn't feel this one--characters, heat, trope. It was a miss for me.

Ian and Kinley were okay. There was nothing that really stood out about them or that will be memorable for me. They bicker, they get all lusty, you see them in their element/world of writing...but there just wasn't anything about them that sparked anything for me other than a few funny quips that had me chuckling.

Where the heat came in...The thing for me was the the book actually suffered from a lot of the things the hero had criticized in the heroine's manuscript. While they had some good banter and it was fun watching them deal with each other the sexual chemistry never quite made it there and the sex scenes, while plentiful, never sparked off any tingles and felt kind of off. Suddenly not only were they exploring regular sex but kinky sex and throwing in BDSM elements and being in a D/s relationship (but only for 4 days) and it just didn't fall into place right. It very much read like a first book and someone wanting to pull in the naughty elements of BDSM and not knowing how. Like the hero I was left thinking the book would have been better as a sweet romance rather than attempting to be an erotic one.

The other issue that stood out was name dropping. It was plentiful. There was an abundance of real life authors, editors, publishing company owners, sex toy parties, literary agents, cover designers, assistants, and their actual companies mentioned. I'm guessing to try and make the readers connect more with it? Like omg I know her or I read her or follow her! kind of thing but it pulled me out of the story and felt awkward and like it was trying just a little too hard :/

All in all, not for me. I've enjoyed others in the series so will definitely read more of them but this one was a miss on almost all fronts other than a cute set up and some funny moments now and again, oh, and a kilted model going comando. Other people are loving this one, though, so maybe check out their reviews too just to see.

Librarian Kinley Foster wants to write erotic romance—the steamy, sexy, curl-your-toes kind of stuff. The problem? She desperately needs a little erotic inspiration. And at a romance convention in Vegas, she finds it...or rather him. The sizzlingly sexy guy who refused Kinley—and her virginity—when she was sixteen.

Now it's time for a little payback.

Literary agent Ian Thompson is a professional. Mentoring an aspiring author is one thing. Giving her a thorough and thoroughly satisfying sexy education is quite another. Especially when she's as stunning and deliciously curvaceous as Kinley. Yet Ian can't help himself when Kinley makes him a wager he can't resist. A wager that will tempt Ian to cross every professional—and every sensual—boundary in the book...

 

Challenges: Pick Your Genre (contemporary) | New to You (author) | Pervy Girl (vibrator)  Goodreads