Review: A SEAL’s Surrender by Tawny Weber

Title: A SEAL’s Surrender

Author: Tawny Weber

Mills & Boon imprint: Blaze

Year of publication: 2013

The heroine: Vet Eden Gillespie

The hero: Navy SEAL Cade Sullivan

The blurb: Lieutenant Commander Cade Sullivan is the job. His commitment to the Navy SEALs is absolute – almost. Worse still, he’s been summoned home, where his privileged family is the town royality and women vie to be one of Cade’s conquests. One of them in particular….

Ever since they were kids, Cade has been rescuing Eden Gillespie. Now she’s decided she owes him one heck of a thank-you-one that involves a bed, naked bodies and sweet satisfaction. But when their sexy trysts are discovered, Eden becomes a bit of a town sensation-and not in a good way. Can she convince her SEAL to risk one last rescue operation?

Standalone or series: Part of the Uniformly Hot! series, but can be read as a standalone

The review: Almost a dozen of the Uniformly Hot! series are currently on sale as e-books for $1.99 at Amazon.com.au and even cheaper at Amazon. com, so if you like e-books and want to get them cheaply, go now! I bought all the ones on sale bar one which I’d already read.

This is book two of the SEAL series, which appears to be a sub-series in the Uniformly Hot! range. I’ve gotta say… this didn’t read like a Blaze book. It didn’t feel as polished, for some reason. Which is an odd thing to say, I know, since I can’t really articulate why I feel that way. Alas.

Eden Gillespie has been in love with Cade Sullivan, her next door neighbour, for years. Cade has a bit of a reputation amongst the local ladies, and everyone wants into the exclusive club of women who’ve slept with Cade. Eden is a vet and has just opened her own practice, and since she won’t kiss ass to the rich, snooty townsfolk and doesn’t get invited to everything, she’s struggling to get customers.

On top of that, she finds out – on her birthday, no less – that her mother has taken a $30,000 loan against the house that Eden owns. She took over the mortgage from her mother but her lawyer cousin persuaded her to leave her mother on it since she was a student, and now that’s come back to bite her. She can’t get in touch with her mother, who’s gallivanting around the country in an RV, and the bank has given her one month to come up with the money.

Cade has never been particularly close to his father, since the latter was disappointed that Cade did not want to take over the family business and became a SEAL instead, but when Robert has a heart attack Cade reluctantly comes home. He seems to turn up just as Eden gets stuck in a tree or needs rescuing from something, and this time is no exception.

Eden’s birthday wish has been the same for the last few years – have sex with Cade. She invites him out for a drink to thank him for helping her out of a tree, and it turns out that Eden gets more than a drink. She tells herself she only wants a fling with Cade, since he’s only in town for a week or so, and Cade has always found her attractive but off limits… but they start having sex anyway.

Once the townsfolk get wind of Eden hooking up with Cade, her vet business gets busier than it’s ever been – because everybody wants to know if they’re actually having sex or not. Man, this is a gossipy town. Cade is having doubts about whether to remain a SEAL after losing a teammate, and his father is badgering him to chase Eden for the $10,000 he loaned her mother that Eden has no idea about.

Cade’s uncle, who is also in the Navy, wants him to become a trainer, and although Cade resists at first, he starts to think that maybe it’s the right path for him. The more time he spends around Eden, the more he falls for her, despite saying that was never a life he wanted. Eden, for her part, has already fallen in love with Cade, but doesn’t want him to resent her down the track if he takes a different job.

In the end, Mama Gillespie is found and hands over all the money she owes from having sold her sculptures, Cade realises he wants a life with Eden, and she agrees to split her time between him and San Diego, where he’ll be based. I really liked Eden, she was a great heroine who refused to kowtow to the snobs and wanted to be seen as more than being an accident-prone klutz. And you know how it ends – with a happy little epilogue, yay!

Feels Like The First Time by Tawny Weber

Title: Feels Like The First Time

Author: Tawny Weber

Mills & Boon imprint: Blaze

Year of publication: 2009

The heroine: Freelance consultant Zoe Gaston

The hero: Video game designer Dexter Drake

The blurb: Zoe Gaston needs to unmask a mystery man for work. She also must survive her dreaded high school reunion—and the costume party that opens it. So Zoe, once voted Girl Most Likely to Die a Virgin, comes dressed as a dominatrix…whip and all!

Her scandalous costume catches a secret lover. But Zoe is shocked to discover the sexy body she’s been so thoroughly enjoying belongs to Dexter Drake—her oldest friend! And he’s hiding something bigger than just his identity….

Standalone or series: Part of the Dressed To Thrill series, but can be read as a standalone.

The review: This is another book I have mixed feelings on. Zoe Gaston decides to attend her ten year high school reunion because she’s looking for a classmate known online as Gandalf – he’s one of the hottest video game designers in the business. Everyone is talking about him at the reunion, but she needs to find him because her sister-in-law is convinced Gandalf can help turn Zoe’s brother’s fledging business around.

Zoe was never popular in school; she was a goth geek whose only real friend was maths geek Dexter Drake. A year younger than her, he stuck by her when her parents died in a car accident at sixteen. Despite them being the best of friends, they lost touch when she left school – and town – and they haven’t seen each other in ten years.

When Zoe spots Dex at the hotel his parents own where the reunion is taking place, she’s stunned. He’s grown into a tall, sexy guy she finds herself lusting after. What she doesn’t know is that he had a crush on her all those years ago, and that crush is reignited when he sees her again.

The opening dinner is a costume party, so Zoe’s sister-in-law orders her a costume but the shop delivers the wrong one – she gets a dominatrix costume. She wears it anyway and runs into a masked man called Aragorn, with whom she makes out in the dark. He kisses and runs, and she wants to hook up with him again.

You can see where this is going, right? Masked man = Gandalf = Dexter. Zoe figures out the masked man is Dexter before she has hot sex with him, but he doesn’t know that until the next morning. Anyway, in the end, Zoe decides she loves Dex enough to stay in her hometown; he reveals himself to be Gandalf and helps her brother.

What made this a mixed bag for me was Zoe. I really couldn’t get much a feel for her character, and I can’t really say why. I absolutely adored Dex, and his grandmother was a hoot. I can see why Zoe fell in love with Dex, but couldn’t see why it was mutual. Various characters kept listing all of Zoe’s attributes, but I just wasn’t feeling it. Le sigh.

The sex scene had a major error, which threw me out of it: before they start, Dex decides he wants Zoe to leave her boots on and nothing else. He takes her boots off to pull her jeans and underwear off, but two lines later… he’s kissing her leg just above her boots. Zoe apparently owes magical boots that put themselves back on after thirty seconds! Worth a read for Dex.