Cuevas, Judy - Dance
I liked this even more than Bliss, which is saying something ^_^.
I have to squee a bit about Sebastien, because he is so cute and straight-laced and geeky and smart. Squee!! It's funny how I used to be into the alpha bastard mold of hero, and then switched to the more playful, trickster sort of hero, and now am crushing entirely on the.. geeks? Sebastien's got all the outer traits of an alpha bastard -- he's horribly well built and incredibly wealthy, has an incredible head for business and a rather large control streak. But he's about as anti-rake as you can get, and his control issues seem to be more a desire for things to go well than a more Angel-type control streak. Plus, he is so incredibly cute when he loses every ounce of his much vaunted control.
He's one of the rare heroes I think I would actually like to meet because there's a sort of surprisingly un-maliciousness to him that is pretty rare in many romance heroes. It's hard to describe -- like he's not larger than life, so his motivations, though misguided, make sense (unlike the alpha bastard with traumatized childhood).
I also enjoyed how Cuevas was playing around with typical gender roles -- Marie is the one who is not sure she wants to commit and a bit on the rakish side, while Sebastien is the more typical heroine-figure with a dead spouse whom he never loved and who never loved him (bad sex included), awakened to real sexual pleasure by Marie. He's also the less forceful one in the relationship despite all the factors that would seemingly make him the one in control (money, etc.), and Marie is the one who generally directs the sexual tension, as opposed to a typical heroine who is confused and rather frightened by her own sexuality. I was also immensely amused by the fact that Sebastien was the one horrified by his own "animalistic" behavior in their one previous sexual encounter while Marie had to work and reassure him that not only was it perfectly fine with her, but that it was really quite nice.
And interesting sex scenes! Though I did sort of wish she went into more detail with the one in which Marie is directing Sebastien because I thought it was interesting and a good chance to explore character more.
Despite being a sequel to Bliss, there is no happy get together with Nardi and Hannah. Reconciliation does sort of start, but Cuevas remembers that the two brothers really didn't get along that well and doesn't try to rush things. And I liked the little throwaway line in which Sebastien thinks to himself that he never really liked Hannah in the first place -- refreshing change from those giant series of romances in which everyone and his/her chosen true love pal around and adore everyone in the gang, no matter what.
I have to squee a bit about Sebastien, because he is so cute and straight-laced and geeky and smart. Squee!! It's funny how I used to be into the alpha bastard mold of hero, and then switched to the more playful, trickster sort of hero, and now am crushing entirely on the.. geeks? Sebastien's got all the outer traits of an alpha bastard -- he's horribly well built and incredibly wealthy, has an incredible head for business and a rather large control streak. But he's about as anti-rake as you can get, and his control issues seem to be more a desire for things to go well than a more Angel-type control streak. Plus, he is so incredibly cute when he loses every ounce of his much vaunted control.
He's one of the rare heroes I think I would actually like to meet because there's a sort of surprisingly un-maliciousness to him that is pretty rare in many romance heroes. It's hard to describe -- like he's not larger than life, so his motivations, though misguided, make sense (unlike the alpha bastard with traumatized childhood).
I also enjoyed how Cuevas was playing around with typical gender roles -- Marie is the one who is not sure she wants to commit and a bit on the rakish side, while Sebastien is the more typical heroine-figure with a dead spouse whom he never loved and who never loved him (bad sex included), awakened to real sexual pleasure by Marie. He's also the less forceful one in the relationship despite all the factors that would seemingly make him the one in control (money, etc.), and Marie is the one who generally directs the sexual tension, as opposed to a typical heroine who is confused and rather frightened by her own sexuality. I was also immensely amused by the fact that Sebastien was the one horrified by his own "animalistic" behavior in their one previous sexual encounter while Marie had to work and reassure him that not only was it perfectly fine with her, but that it was really quite nice.
And interesting sex scenes! Though I did sort of wish she went into more detail with the one in which Marie is directing Sebastien because I thought it was interesting and a good chance to explore character more.
Despite being a sequel to Bliss, there is no happy get together with Nardi and Hannah. Reconciliation does sort of start, but Cuevas remembers that the two brothers really didn't get along that well and doesn't try to rush things. And I liked the little throwaway line in which Sebastien thinks to himself that he never really liked Hannah in the first place -- refreshing change from those giant series of romances in which everyone and his/her chosen true love pal around and adore everyone in the gang, no matter what.