Dawn Atkins (1)
Author of Don't Tempt Me...
For other authors named Dawn Atkins, see the disambiguation page.
About the Author
Image credit: Dawn Atkins
Series
Works by Dawn Atkins
Two Can Play 2 copies
Un mari improvisé 1 copy
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Other names
- Atkins, Dawn
- Gender
- female
- Short biography
- Dawn Atkins knew she wanted to be an author since she put fat pencil to blue-lined paper. Though she always wanted to be an author, she wasn't sure she had the "stuff" to be published. She graduated from college with a teaching degree and taught elementary school—second and third grades (the best).She met her husband, David, in 1980. They married in 1985, taking their Hobie catamaran to San Diego for their honeymoon.
Dawn began freelance feature writing for newspapers and magazines, local and national. She published two stories in True Love magazine in the early '80s. Getting brave, she wrote a sexy romance, which was promptly rejected. Eventually she left teaching and freelancing for full-time public relations jobs. Busy with career changes, marriage and having a child, she set aside her plans to write novels until 1996, when she dug out that rejected book and rewrote it. Two years later, she sold the first of two short romantic comedies to Kensington Publishing. Then in 2000 she began her career writing sensual and funny romances for several Harlequin lines—Temptation, Duets, Flipside and Blaze—which she now calls home, adding a dash of suspense to her latest releases. In 2006, she left her day job to write full-time and hasn't looked back. She's won the Golden Quill for Best Sexy Romance and has been a several-times Romantic Times Reviewers Choice finalist for Best Blaze (twice) and Best Flipside, as well as a finalist for the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for "Best Love and Laughter."
Dawn lives in the Phoenix area with her husband and son and their butterscotch-and-white cat, whom they adopted when they realized the dog they wanted was really a cat. Her hobbies include sailing, scuba diving, playing the piano (badly) and Zumba, her current obsession. - Nationality
- USA
- Places of residence
- Phoenix, Arizona, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- Arizona, USA
Members
Reviews
Sugar Thompson just hit 35 and has decided to expand her couples/sex therapy resort into franchises. There's just a few tiny hiccups. Her partner Gage wants things to remain as they are, and he's just confessed his love for her. Sugar prefers to keep her freedom to move on relegating men to sex, not relationships. Gage prefers stability and long-term attachments. Could this match ever work out? The stakes are high because the outcome of their relationship questions also affects the outcome show more of their business.
Sugar has classic commitment-phobia. She refuses to settle down and acknowledge, much less cultivate, attachment out of a fear that she will be hurt - stemming from the overdone cliche of a poor parental relationship. Every single problem that crops up in their relationship Sugar immediately turns into a fatal sign that they were never meant to be together. I just wanted to throttle her. Meanwhile, the author attempted to shift at least some of the blame to Gage for "not fighting" for the relationship as she pushed him away and told him how it would never work in every single breath.
Yes, relationships are worth fighting for if you really love somebody, but how much abuse, doubt, and fatalism can a mere mortal take?
In short: I know we were supposed to want a happy ending, but I really wish he had just left her. She sabotaged the relationship from the beginning, and I don't see why all the burden should be on one person to shore up love, no matter which gender.
(The resort was really cool though. I would totally go. ) show less
Sugar has classic commitment-phobia. She refuses to settle down and acknowledge, much less cultivate, attachment out of a fear that she will be hurt - stemming from the overdone cliche of a poor parental relationship. Every single problem that crops up in their relationship Sugar immediately turns into a fatal sign that they were never meant to be together. I just wanted to throttle her. Meanwhile, the author attempted to shift at least some of the blame to Gage for "not fighting" for the relationship as she pushed him away and told him how it would never work in every single breath.
Yes, relationships are worth fighting for if you really love somebody, but how much abuse, doubt, and fatalism can a mere mortal take?
In short: I know we were supposed to want a happy ending, but I really wish he had just left her. She sabotaged the relationship from the beginning, and I don't see why all the burden should be on one person to shore up love, no matter which gender.
(The resort was really cool though. I would totally go. ) show less
Whooh boy, this one distracted me a bit. This is the story of Samantha Sawyer, a boudoir photographer, seeking the perfect guy to help her fulfill some fantasies and along came Rick West. He's an undercover cop investigating her landlord, finding himself a lot distracted by her and her business.
I like how the emphasis was on erotic photographs rather than anything else and how damn turned on the characters got by each other. The resolution of how he managed to get beyond his betrayal of her show more was also handled well and the characters made me wish them well. I enjoyed the read thoroughly and am currently looking for more by this author! show less
I like how the emphasis was on erotic photographs rather than anything else and how damn turned on the characters got by each other. The resolution of how he managed to get beyond his betrayal of her show more was also handled well and the characters made me wish them well. I enjoyed the read thoroughly and am currently looking for more by this author! show less
Good book, very intense in places. Tara had left her hometown far behind. As a teenager she had been desperate for her parents' attention and got into all kinds of trouble trying to get it. She and Dylan were high school sweethearts with plans and dreams away from their hometown. When it came time to leave for college Dylan's family's business was in trouble and he decided to stay and help. Tara felt betrayed and hurt and she and Dylan said some pretty nasty things to each other. Tara went show more on to start her own business and Dylan stayed in Wharton. Now Tara is back to deal with her father's death and her sister's coma. There is something about the accident that doesn't make sense and as she begins to investigate she spends more time with Dylan.
I had a hard time liking Tara. I understood that she really disliked the small town life and the way it seemed that everyone was always nosing into everyone else's business. As a teenager she was different than everyone else and seemed to rub everyone the wrong way. The only person who seemed to understand her was Dylan, but when he refused to leave town with her she cut him out of her life. Now that she's back the attraction is still there. I liked the way that she and Dylan cleared the air about the past and were able to start working together. But I was really irritated by Tara's paranoia. She believed the worst about everyone. I didn't like the way that she would fly off the handle and make wild accusations. She also admitted her love for Dylan but she didn't trust him. She had a lot of old feelings to overcome.
I liked Dylan better. He had given up his dreams in order to save his father's business. Part of that dream was a future with Tara. He set himself a goal of bringing the business to a certain point and then he would leave the business and do his job as town manager full time. He has some great ideas and plans for what he would like to do. When Tara came back he realized that his love for her hadn't died and he would like to have her back in his life. He wanted to help her find the answers to her questions but he had a problem with her methods. There were several times that he had to talk her out of doing something stupid or to calm her down after she started making wild accusations. I really felt bad for the way that she made things so hard for him.
Both of them said things to the other that were really mean and hurtful. It was hard to see how it was possible to overcome them and find their way to a happy ending. It was interesting to see the way that Tara's people skills worked with everyone except when she was dealing with her feelings about the town. I found the resolution of the mystery to be interesting with a couple of unexpected twists. show less
I had a hard time liking Tara. I understood that she really disliked the small town life and the way it seemed that everyone was always nosing into everyone else's business. As a teenager she was different than everyone else and seemed to rub everyone the wrong way. The only person who seemed to understand her was Dylan, but when he refused to leave town with her she cut him out of her life. Now that she's back the attraction is still there. I liked the way that she and Dylan cleared the air about the past and were able to start working together. But I was really irritated by Tara's paranoia. She believed the worst about everyone. I didn't like the way that she would fly off the handle and make wild accusations. She also admitted her love for Dylan but she didn't trust him. She had a lot of old feelings to overcome.
I liked Dylan better. He had given up his dreams in order to save his father's business. Part of that dream was a future with Tara. He set himself a goal of bringing the business to a certain point and then he would leave the business and do his job as town manager full time. He has some great ideas and plans for what he would like to do. When Tara came back he realized that his love for her hadn't died and he would like to have her back in his life. He wanted to help her find the answers to her questions but he had a problem with her methods. There were several times that he had to talk her out of doing something stupid or to calm her down after she started making wild accusations. I really felt bad for the way that she made things so hard for him.
Both of them said things to the other that were really mean and hurtful. It was hard to see how it was possible to overcome them and find their way to a happy ending. It was interesting to see the way that Tara's people skills worked with everyone except when she was dealing with her feelings about the town. I found the resolution of the mystery to be interesting with a couple of unexpected twists. show less
While the setup was a little forced the overall story of this pair of opposites trying to improve themselves. Candy Calder is desperate to be taken seriously, even though her personality is not suited to what she's doing or what she's aiming to do, she wants approval and justification from her family.
Matt Rockwell is her boss, a geek promoted to a role where he's supposed to be more social, they agree to help each other and find that it's difficult to keep it on a professional show more relationship.
There were aspects of the story that didn't quite work for me but overall for what it was it worked. The fact that both of them came to terms with themselves was a bonus! show less
Matt Rockwell is her boss, a geek promoted to a role where he's supposed to be more social, they agree to help each other and find that it's difficult to keep it on a professional show more relationship.
There were aspects of the story that didn't quite work for me but overall for what it was it worked. The fact that both of them came to terms with themselves was a bonus! show less
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 36
- Also by
- 1
- Members
- 548
- Popularity
- #45,523
- Rating
- 3.5
- Reviews
- 11
- ISBNs
- 106
- Languages
- 2