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Ash to Steele
NEW ADULT: Small town girl and preacher’s daughter, Emma Jones, decides to leave Pickens, South Carolina and her long-time boyfriend to discover the big city of Boston. Working two jobs to make ends meet isn’t the life she expected. Still, she manages to pursue her passion - painting. What she didn’t expect was to find herself attracted to a womanizer like Breck.
The smooth lothario oozes sex appeal and Emma knows she’s no match for his wiles. Despite her previous beau’s constant appeals to sleep with him, she managed to hold him off with her good girl attitude. Truth was he never had the impact Breck does. It’s easy to see that bad boy Breck is heartache on a stick when she witnesses the endless women that parade through his life. It’s harder when he performs so many thoughtful, gestures indicating there might be an actual heart under his sexy exterior.
“Ash to Steele” employs the good girl/bad boy plot that has been a classic romance fodder. The first person narration gives more insight to the characters and moves the plot along. The tale starts strong, pulling the reader in, but stumbles a few times with wrong word choices including “love at first site,” and a reference to being “the kindle to his inferno,” break the flow. There are more than a dozen similar word stumbles.
In the end, it is difficult to accept that the virginal Emma would accept a bad boy who refuses even to kiss the dozens of women he uses for sex.
Morgan Stamm