Daring Her Love
by Melissa Foster
Release Date: November 24, 2015
Publisher: Evil Eye Concepts, Inc.
Book #2 in The Bradens Novellas series
Part of the larger Love in Bloom series
Number of Pages: 136
Contemporary Romance
Ages 16 and up
CW: drug abuse, near drowning,
parental neglect
———————
This BRADEN novella features Kat Martin, Brianna Heart’s best friend from HEARTS AT PLAY (The Bradens, #6) with appearances from the hot, wealthy, and wickedly naughty Bradens you know and love.
In DARING HER LOVE…
Kat Martin knows what she wants in a man—someone stable and adoring, definitely not the type of guy who sleeps around. After all, Kat rarely does the wrong thing—until she meets seductively enticing Eric James, and suddenly wrong has never felt so right.
When it comes to his career, race-car driver Eric James is intense, obsessive, and passionate, but when it comes to sex, there’s only one kind—daring, unbridled, and no-strings-attached.
One stormy night, a delayed flight and the dangerous allure of the unknown leads Kat to throw caution to the wind, and she indulges in a rendezvous that she vows to immediately forget—but the secret tryst stirs something possessive in Eric, and forgetting is not an option.
I have been reading the books, mostly novellas, that I previously missed in the Love in Bloom series. While it’s been almost nine years since I read Hearts at Play, the book where Kat is first introduced, I found it didn’t matter. This book reads well as a standalone.
When Kat and Eric first meet at the airport, I honestly wasn’t sure if I’d be able to get behind him as a hero. This story wasn’t published that long ago, but a lot has happened in the world since 2015 and it’s definitely changed how I view certain depictions of “flirting”. It turns out Eric is truly a wonderful person, but his method of picking up a one-night stand in the beginning leaves much to be desired. It gave me a squiggy, uncomfortable feeling until he took the step to ask for outright consent. There is a certain type of book I expect and enjoy pushing boundaries, this is not that type of book so it was out of place and could very well ruin the whole book for some people.
That being said, Kat and Eric are wonderful together. Once we get past their initial hook-up, he’s very caring and quite the gentleman. Kat has some misconceptions about how to go about finding her HEA. She sees her best friend in this wonderful relationship and tries to emulate what was done to get to that point. But, to her credit, her friend Brianna tells Kat that she’s trying to be something she’s not and she should be proud of who she is, not changing who she is.
This is a short story so the love comes quickly. It’s a lot of fun, though. I enjoyed seeing these two deserving people find their forever mates.
3.5 stars
**Note: If you’re curious as to where this book falls in the overall Love in Bloom series, it’s smack dab in the middle of the Wild Boys After Dark series, after Logan and Heath but before Jackson and Cooper. As for the main books in the series, it’s tucked in after Seized by Love (The Ryders #1) and before Surrender My Love (The Bradens at Peaceful Harbor #2).
All In Good Time 