Reviewed for THC Reviews
Big Guns Out of Uniform is an anthology of three contemporary borderline erotic novellas featuring heroes in law enforcement.

BAD to the Bone
BAD to the Bone was a pure fantasy that was very fun and enjoyable to read. I thought that the beginning and ending of the story could have benefited from a bit more clarity and tighter plotting, but the rest of the story really helped to make up for these deficiencies. The premise of a woman living out her romance novel fantasies in real life with a hunky hero was very entertaining. I especially liked that Kyle actually read Marianne's favorite book and was trying to make it all come to life for her. It just made him seem so caring and thoughtful.

I found both characters to be likable, relatable, and well-drawn. Marianne, as an average, ordinary woman, just couldn't have been sweeter, yet she was passionate and adventurous enough to step outside her comfort zone. Kyle was a tough guy with a tortured past, yet he accepted Marianne's tenderness toward him as something that was missing from his life instead of being suspicious or shutting down emotionally. In fact, she was able to fulfill his fantasies every bit as much as he fulfilled hers. I loved the way the author built a beautiful relationship between these two characters in such a short time mainly with the use of communication, a seeming rarity in romance novels. This made for some extremely sexy and sensuous love scenes that were still very sweet and romantic. Overall, I found this novella to be a delightful read that even showcased a little humor, a great story for anyone looking for a bit of escapism.

BAD to the Bone along with its two companion novellas in the Born to Be BAD anthology are something of a prequel to the main B.A.D. Agency series. It was first published in Big Guns Out of Uniform, and was later reprinted in Born to Be BAD. This was my first read by Sherrilyn Kenyon, but it certainly won't be my last. I am looking forward to continuing the B.A.D. series as well as exploring her other books. Rating: ****

Let's Talk About Sex
I think it can be difficult for an author to write a short story that is still satisfying, but in Let's Talk About Sex, Liz Carlyle has, in my opinion, put together a tale that has both tight plotting and good character development. The narrative flowed smoothly, and I thought it was the perfect length. Rather than being left with that "I-wish-there-were-more-to-the-story" feeling when it ended, I felt like Goldilocks, that it was "just right".

As the title might imply, the main focus was on the sex, but emotions got tangled up in the mix pretty quickly. The love scenes were both creative and scorching hot and there were plenty of them too, but there were also some romantic moments as well. I haven't seen many real proposals in the romances I've read, so I thought the proposal scene was a particularly nice touch. I also thought that the author progressing the narrative through a few months time, made this scenario more believable.

I found both the hero and heroine to be very likable, and neither one was bringing a ton of baggage into the relationship. Sometimes it's just refreshing to read a story about relatively normal people with normal problems. I thought it was sweet that Delia dealt with the topic of sex every day in her work, but in real life was still slightly repressed. Nick was a hot, sexy guy (not to mention an animal lover, which I find hard to resist), who was also a patient and accomplished lover. He knew exactly how to rebuild Delia's self-confidence and release her inner sex kitten to make her purr.

While the story did not contain many of the getting-to-know-you moments that I love and that really help to build a more believable relationship, I found Let's Talk About Sex to be a fun, enjoyable romp. Readers who like lust turned to love or love at first sight stories should appreciate this one, and while those are not my favorite plot lines, Ms. Carlyle's writing was strong enough to make me overlook that. Liz Carlyle has been one of my favorite authors of historical romance for a while, and even though Let's Talk About Sex was her first and only foray into contemporary romance to date, I found it to be equally as good. In my opinion, it was the overall best and most well written novella in this anthology, definitely worthy of keeper status. Rating: ****1/2

The Nekkid Truth
In my opinion, this novella had a lot of potential that it just didn't quite live up to. I thought the premise of the story was a fascinating one, that of a woman who had lost the ability to recognize faces due to a head injury. I like it when an author can teach me about something I didn't already know or expand on my previous knowledge of a particular subject, and I find things of a medical nature to be especially interesting. While the author did give an overview of what this condition entailed, she never once called it by it's actual name, Prosopagnosia aka Face Blindness. She also did not fully express in any depth what it was like for the heroine to live with this affliction, which I felt would have created a much more compelling story. Instead the author opted to tell the reader more about the heroine's photography endeavors and sexual conquests than about her life and feelings. The cover blurb also implies that the heroine's special condition somehow plays a pivotal role in the criminal investigation, but I never quite saw how that was the case.

The Nekkid Truth reminded me in some ways of old black & white detective movies. It is written in first person with a rather dry, "just the facts ma'am" type of presentation. I felt like I was being told the story rather than experiencing it. This writing style made it very difficult to get a good grasp on any of the characters, particularly the hero about whom readers are only given tidbits of information, most of which doesn't come out until toward the end. I am not opposed to the first person perspective, but I think it can be very challenging for an author using this writing style to convey the feelings and emotions of other characters in the story unless they are very deft at their craft.

The love scenes showed some creativity and with a little more tenderness and less matter-of-fact attitude, could have been truly romantic and steamy, but without the incorporation of emotions, came off as being little more than a string of sexual encounters that lacked any real spark and to me felt very crude. I'm afraid that certain aspects of the heroine's photography, as well as a rather hedonistic attitude from her and other characters, only lent to this atmosphere. I also found my eyebrows shooting up at a couple of unrealistic descriptions of the size of the male anatomy (not the hero's) which simply added more fuel to the fire.

As far as the heroine's work, I have no issue with nude art and in fact have found many pieces to be quite beautiful, so I had no real problem with her specializing in nude photography. What did bother me however, was her penchant for wallpapering her studio with nude photos and even more so, her seeming obsession with taking photographs of that certain part of the male anatomy and then meticulously filing them away. Apparently, this all had something to do with her face blindness, and at one point she tried to explain this all to the hero, but it still just never made much sense to me. In general, there simply wasn't enough depth of emotion to be found in this story to really draw me into the characters lives and make me truly care about them or believe in their love for each other and a lasting happily-ever-after ending.

Though not incredibly compelling, I thought Ms. Camden did do well with the mystery element. This part of the narrative was fed to the reader bit by bit, so that the solution to the puzzle was not really discernible until the reveal. Although there was room for improvement in this area as well, I did find it to be interesting. In my opinion, she also did a good job with keeping the plot tight and the story moving along at a steady pace.

The Nekkid Truth was the only novella in this anthology which featured a hero and heroine who had know each other for a while before becoming intimately involved which was an aspect of the story I could appreciate, but again, with the lack of emotion, I still found the other two novellas to be much more compelling and believable. Usually anthologies group together stories with similar themes and styles, and while the cop hero theme was there, the writing style of The Nekkid Truth was very different from the other two, making it seem somewhat out of place in this grouping. This appears to be Ms. Camden's first and only published work, so I am willing to allow that with some sharpening of her writing skills and/or perhaps a switch to a mystery or edgy chic-lit genre, she could have potential. Rating: ***

*Review updated: 11/3/10