Allyson Lindt

"the kind of thing that only happened in porn"

A couple are celebrating their first Christmas together. They invite her best friend to spend Christmas Eve with them for a few drinks. A blizzard ensues and he has to spend the night. Fortunately their suite has two bedrooms - though the walls are dreadfully thin, and then there's that game of "Truth Or Dare"...

So nothing new in the setup, but Allyson Lindt and Shaylin Matthews bring us a trio of likable, human characters who all get their say, show more and have their reservations, about what ensues. This is a fantasy, one loaded with angst and drama and love and joy and sex and uncertainty and it works.

A great quick read to curl up with this holiday season. Recommended. show less

CW: suicide attempt, outing of same gender relationship
enjoyed this one, but dnfed halfway through the second one, when I got tired of waiting for the same gender love interest to show up again
some power issues with the opposite gender love interest, former teacher at her school

Reverse Harem just isn't my trope, though, and I read this in the middle of figuring that out. Forbidden fruit/Workplace romance is never my trope, and this teacher had known her since she was a little girl. And I show more don't know if it's a trope, but I'm not super into the story arc of bisexual women choosing heterosexual partnerships. I'm glad there is more bisexual representation of all kinds! I just don't find much appeal in that particular narrative.

Because this was a pile of Not My Tropes, I was too distracted by the power issues of a teacher as love interest and the gender and sexuality issues of man as love interest (juxtaposed against her same gender peer love interest) to invest in their relationship. Unfortunately, their relationship was the primary focus of (as much as I read of) the second book.

The story was engaging. I would have read the trilogy if there had been more focus on the exgirlfriend or other non cishetmale love interests. show less

Quick, sexy read. The main premise is that of two people with jobs that require a large amount of travel run into each other at a convention. The chemistry between them is hot & intense. Jade heard rumors about Brandon that start them off on the wrong foot. They both are lonely & getting tired of all the time they spend traveling alone. They agree to give a long distance romance a chance. This is a quick, tight plot with interesting characters.

dnf @ 15%

Didn't really liked how boundaries weren't established when three mcs agreed to play just with sex toys and a few lines after that it goes to full penetrative sex. I like excited consent, especially in novellas, since there is no time to develop the characters (but in this case there's apparently time to info-dump all nerdy lore about Star Wars and such, which is unnecessary imo because it didn't add to the character development, relationship and overall story)