Book Club: Too Much Temptation and a Visit with Lori Foster

We're so thrilled to welcome NY Times bestselling author Lori Foster to book club today. Book Club member Alyson Hackett suggested Too Much Temptation and when I asked her to tell me why, this is what she said:

First of all, Noah is 6'4". That alone is enough to make me love this book! There is just something about a tall man. And man is this book HOT!! Whooeeee!!!

The relationship between Ben and Noah is great. They didn't grow up together but are there for one another. The blend of their personalities works really well for me.

And of course Agatha. You kind of just have to love the ornery old bitch! She is one of those characters that you know means well but has no idea how to go about it without pissing everyone off!

And some quotes for you....

She leaned down and gave him a smacking kiss. "I'm going to love having sex with you."

As they locked fingers, Grace saw Agatha take note of the telling gesture. "Noah did not ruin me," she said, struggling for a calm she didn't feel, "even though I was more than willing to be thoroughly ruined."

Ben nudged Noah. "I never thought I'd hear Grace talking dirty to another woman. It's sort of a turn-on huh?"
Glaring, Noah smacked Ben in the side of the head.

I read this book years ago and re-read it for book club. It was fun and funny and sexy and all the things Aly identified. While I enjoyed the romance between Noah and Grace, I also enjoyed the rapport between Noah and his brother Ben as well as the cantankerous Agatha. What did you think? What were some of your favorite lines?

Lori will be here today to chat about this book and any of her others that the book club wenches wish to bring up, so go for it! Lori is giving away some goodies so make sure you comment to be entered into the drawing. Thanks again to Aly for suggesting such a fun book!

Read more about Lori and her latest books here.

Today we're serving up my famous Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

2 blocks of Philadelphia Cream Cheese (I've found the generic isn't as good) softened
1/2 cup of sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp of vanilla extract

Beat until the cream cheese is smooth and creamy. Stir in one cup of chocolate chips and pour into a ready-made graham cracker crust (I buy the largest one). Bake at 400 for about 40 minutes and then refrigerate. Serve cold. Enjoy!

Next Up On Book Club: Too Much Temptation and a Visit With Lori Foster

Ready, set, read! NY TImes bestselling author Lori Foster will be here Thursday to discuss her book, Too Much Temptation, as well as any of her other books that the Book Club Wenches want to talk about. I read Too Much Temptation years ago and loved it (as well as the follow-on, Never Too Much, featuring Noah's cousin Ben.) I'm looking forward to a re-read this week and the visit with Lori, who is coming with a prize package of a tote bag, T-shirt, and other goodies. We love presents at book club!

About the Book:
Grace Jenkins has had little experience with men feeling too awkward and insecure to free the passionate woman inside her. But that hasn't stopped her from dreaming about Noah Harper. Gorgeous, strong and darkly sexy, his rough edge beneath the polish promises no mercy in the bedroom. When Grace learns Noah's engagement has ended in scandal, she shyly offers him her support and her friendship. But Noah's looking for something extra...

Noah wants Grace—badly. He wants to possess those curves that go on forever, to savor her sweet innocence, to take her to the limits of white-hot desire...again and again. What he doesn't want is anything more complicated than that, and he knows Grace is a woman who deserves better. Grace, however, knows exactly what she wants—the kind of ecstasy only Noah can give her. Brazenly, she accepts, and Noah promises to make all her secret fantasies come true...

Read an excerpt of Too Much Temptation here!

The lovely Aly Hackett will be our co-hostess this week, and we're looking forward to another fun meeting! See you there!

Reading Frenzy

I'm getting a nice break from real life this week, and I've been reading like crazy. Today, I devoured Blue-Eyed Devil by Lisa Kleypas. Just like it's predecessor Sugar Daddy, I loved this book. Loved, loved, LOVED IT! I couldn't put it down. Haven Travis, a Houston socialite and battered wife, falls for Hardy Cates, a man who has known tremendous success in the oil business but underneath it all, he is still the roughneck he once was growing up in a trailer park. I like how Lisa Kleypas focused on the sister of her hero from Sugar Daddy. I liked how Hardy did something horrible in Sugar Daddy but I loved him just the same in Blue-Eyed Devil. I'm hoping the next installment, Smooth Talking Stranger, features another of Haven's brothers. Kleypas, known for her sizzling historicals, has made a wonderful leap to contemporary, and she writes in first person. Often I find first person hard to read, mostly because I miss seeing the hero's point of view. However, Kleypas does a masterful job with first person. I highly recommend both Sugar Daddy and Blue-Eyed Devil.

I also read Lori Foster's My Man Michael, the latest in her SBC fighters series. I've loved most of the other SBC books even though I find fighting of any kind to be a major turnoff, but this one was just so-so for me. I wasn't expecting the paranormal element that appeared out of nowhere in this book. Michael "Mallet" Manchester has been badly injured in a car accident, and his career as a top SBC fighter is finished. Enter Kayli Raine from 200 years in the future and this is where this story just got weird for me. Usually, I have tremendous problems suspending disbelief enough to go along with anything paranormal but something kept me reading this book. I decided later it was the sizzling chemistry between Michael and Kayli. I skipped a lot of the stuff about the conflict in Kayli's colony that only Michael could fix in exchange for her mending his shattered leg as she transported him into the future. Hmmm... Okay. Their romance was fun to read, but I found the resolution of how he managed to remain 200 years into the future with her at the end of the book to be too pat. I've read mixed reviews about this book, and I can see how regular Foster readers would be taken aback by getting something they didn't expect in My Man Michael. She's known as a contemporary writer and this book is a major departure. However, I still love her and will continue to read her future books.

Next up is Lori Wilde's All of Me. I read one of Lori's recent Blaze books and loved it, so I'm looking forward to this one! I loaned my friend Kristan Higgins' latest, Too Good to be True, to my friend, but hope to get to that one this week, too. I'll let you know how they are!