Carol Snow is no Scrooge…but she'd rather get her heart rate up with a sexy book than a messy, real-life romance. Still, she's tempted to rethink that when rugged coworker Luke Chancellor shows her—in mind-blowing detail— exactly what she's been missing. But when he asks for a real date, Carol runs like hell….
And stumbles back into the exact same day— including out-of-this-world sex with luscious Luke!
Talk about no-strings sex. Except…Carol soon realizes she wants more than multiple one-night stands. She just has to figure out how to wake up with Luke in a new day…before time—and all that afterglow—runs out.
USA TODAY bestselling author Stephanie Bond was seven years deep into a systems engineering career and pursuing an MBA at night when an instructor remarked that she had a flair for writing and suggested that she submit to academic journals. But Stephanie, a voracious reader, was only interested in writing fiction–more specifically, romantic fiction.
Upon completing her master’s degree and with no formal training in writing (her undergraduate degree is in computer programming), she started writing a romance novel in her spare time. Two years later in 1995 she sold her first manuscript, a romantic comedy, to Harlequin Books.
In 1997, with ten sales under her belt to two publishers, Stephanie left her corporate job to write women’s romantic fiction full-time. In 2011,
Stephanie launched a self-publishing business. Since that time, she has sold more than 1 million copies of her own books. To-date, Stephanie has published over 70 novels and has over 6 million copies of her work in worldwide distribution in numerous languages and formats.
An office romance between two senior level directors who work at a greeting card company. She is bitter cold and hasn't gotten over a bad relationship from EIGHT f'n years ago. He is perfect. While I am not a fan of the man-hating, icy cold heroine getting the hot guy, when she finally thaws the story did become enjoyable. There is also a cute twist on Scrooge with visions of past, present and future (but I wouldn't call this a paranormal.) Not as sexy as most HQN Blaze, but what we got was pretty good. I was tempted to quit this book in the beginning as it was neither interesting or sexy for the first half, but it picked up.
This was a cute, very short, sweet, and hot Valentine's Day take on A Christmas Carol with a no-nonsense Financial director in a greeting card company that's a real emotional scrooge thanks to a relationship gone really bad eight years ago... But with a little coaxing from her peer director, player, and all around nice guy, sexy Luke Chancellor, and a pretty funky time-warp (that computer monitor just keeps on fallin'), she's in for a pretty steamy pre-Valentine's company party.
Did I mention this was cute? Despite the fact Carol, the heroine of this story, and her load of emotional baggage, this was cute, and sweet, unfortunately a little too short (and with a little too big a font). And thanks to Carol's co-worker, Luke Chancellor, it turned out to be pretty steamy as well.
I guess it wasn't an ordeal writing it, since when Carol enters the loop, the dialogs and scenes are pretty much the same, the only difference is the fact she remembers to change a few things to make the steamy storage room action a bit more "relaxed". *grin*
Yes, this was a truly enjoyable read, I honestly didn't expect it to be as much fun as it was, yet despite it all, I just couldn't wait for Carol to finally get out of the loop and experience the morning after. She needed to learn a few things, start thinking right, they all had to experience a really, really, really long day, but eventually the morning after twinkled on the horizon.
This book = An Annoying Heroine + Groundhog Day + A Christmas Carol = 1.5 stars
The best part about this book? It was short and if filled spots on a couple of challenges. I listened while driving, and while the narrator wasn't great, she wasn't the problem. The problem was the heroine, she made me want to beat my head against the steering wheel. And the Groundhog Day aspect, she relived the same thing over and over and over again - almost word for word. I seriously wanted to gag.
This is the sequel to Bond's Seduction by the Book and her e-novella Too Hot to Print. I hadn't read either of those books when I read this one and it made no difference so this book stands nicely alone.
I really enjoyed this book. It was fun, witty, sweet and sexy. You do have to suspend belief for a while because the plot mixes reality and fantasy but it's still believable and really makes the story.
I liked both Carol and Luke and thought they had excellent chemistry together. Carol, especially, was a really sympathetic character and someone I could understand and cheer for.
There were only a couple of things that stopped this book from getting the whole 5 stars. Firstly, because the same scenes were played over and over, it was very odd to be reading the same paragraphs as you'd just read. Not that they weren't slightly different each time but it was still strange! The other was that I really could have done with an epilogue to see the couple in the future especially because Carol was so reluctant to form a relationship. An epilogue is always a desire of mine!
This is still a very good, very well written and clever Blaze romance. 4 stars.
Her Sexy Valentine is one of the sequels to Oct's Seduction By The Book. This time around we are getting Carol Snow's story and what a wild, wacky, sexy tale it is.
Carol goes through a sort of Groundhog Day meets A Christmas Carol thing going on which is a unique twist, but it also detracts from the original story of women seducing their chosen man the way a character in an erotic novel would.
I think this is what makes this book slightly less enjoyable then the first. The erotic novels chosen by the other Red Totebag members gave something extra to the characters. With Carol and Luke there was nothing except a banter over her reading dirty books.
I think the Christmas Carol part of the plot worked the best, because Carol wasn't very likable, even when you learn the reasons for her being standoffish. Luke is a playboy, but nothing he did seemed be anything that would cause anyone to act the way Carol did towards him throughout most of the book.
Her Sexy Valentine definitely didn't live up to the standard's of Seduction By The Book, but if you haven't read that one, its still a good read by Stephanie Bond, its just not quite as good as it could've been.
Carol Snow belongs to a romance book club, probably to make up for the lack of romance in her life. Luke Chancellor works for the same greeting card company that she does. Luke asks Carol to go out with him and that starts the rerun of Friday, Feb 13 in their lives. She remembers each Feb 13 and he doesn't. This plot goes on to long.
This was great...until about half-way through. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who might like this style, but I skimmed the whole latter part. Normally I love Stephanie Bond's writing, but was disappointed in this one. The characters were still wonderful though.
So many continuity errors. And what's the fun in a Groundhog Day-type storyline if the repeat scenes use the exact same sentences? Sure, the events might happen in more or less the same way, but shouldn't the protagonist at least have a different response to them?
I struggled a little with listening to the same day lived over and over shtick a bit, but it came together enough in the end for me to end up liking it. Kind of Groundhogs Day without the humor smacking into A Christmas Carol without the Turkey or the kid on crutches.
I enjoyed this way more than I expected to. The Groundhog Day/Christmas Carol fusion worked for the story, allowing the female lead to grow and change in an EXTREMELY short period of time.
It gets a little repetitive as carol acts a bit stupid sometimes even tho she's the one person who knows what's going on. Not my favorite of Bonds works, but it was ok!