Title: Leave Me Breathless
Author: Cherrie Lynn
Publisher: Samhain Publishing (06 November 2012)
ISBN: 978-1-61921-379-1
Can two people who, outwardly, appear so different have a future together?
I’ve been waiting for this, the third book in Cherrie Lynn’s Ross Siblings series for what feels like forever. Since falling completely in love with Rock Me and its fabulously tattooed and wickedly pierced hero, Brian, (apradavyas, anyone?) when it was released back in 2010, I’ve been sitting and impatiently tapping my foot for Leave Me Breathless’s release. Because there’s nothing I like more than a slightly left-of-centre hero – and Ghost (real name Seth) pushed all my buttons in Rock Me, despite his billing as a secondary character. Cue swoon.
Seth is the sort of guy most middle-class mothers give their daughters stern lectures about. He’s big, tattoos people for a living, is covered in ink himself, and plays death metal for a band named In the Slaughter. Macy, on the other hand, is your typically average woman: close-knit family, conservative, white picket fence. She even rides ponies. (Okay, horses.) Yet, despite their different backgrounds, interests and appearances, Ghost and Macy find themselves extremely attracted to one another. Even better, when it comes to sex, they discover they’re absolute dynamite. The question is, is their compatibility limited to the bedroom?
Rest assured, Leave Me Breathless isn’t a boring ‘boy from the wrong side of the tracks meets affluent girl’ story. Oh, no. It’s much more about two people really, really liking one another and overcoming their own preconceptions rather those of others:
“No other girls? Come on, Macy. If you want to be with a guy like me, you have to be understanding of my needs.”
There it was. The look of utter is he kidding or not? confusion in her hazel eyes. Cracked nut or not, he’d known her skittishness was still in there somewhere.
“You said it yourself, babe. I’m supernatural. You’re a great lay, but surely you don’t think one woman could ever keep all this man satisfied.”
“I would advise you not to say things like that to a woman who has your most precious manly asset in her hands.”
Grinning, he cupped her face and tilted her up for a kiss. “You know I’m full of shit, right?”
That said, Leave Me Breathless isn’t a book full of angsty ‘you read me wrong’, either. Cherrie Lynn has been careful to mix the stereotype-quashing moments with welcome and grounding interludes in which Seth and Macy accept and acknowledge their various differences. I was particularly moved by the scene in which Seth (who, not surprisingly, has a profound love of body art) uses his fingers to trace an invisible design on the tattoo-shy Macy’s bare back:
“What are you doing?” she murmured.
He kept right on drawing. Damn, it would be gorgeous on her.
“Designing the tattoo you would never let me give you.”
The sex? H-o-t hot – but very accessible. In fact, I’m kind of surprised that Seth didn’t have women queuing at this front door. I only have one complaint, Ms Lynn: I would’ve liked to have known and seen a little more of Ghost’s piercings. (Hey, it’s only fair – we got to hear quite a bit about Brian’s aforementioned apradavya in Rock Me. Yes, yes, I know I’m a perv.)
I’m always a bit nervous when I get my hot little hands on a series instalment I’ve been gagging for because, sometimes, I don’t get what I expect – and I don’t mean in a good way. I’ve had more than a few thrills and spills on the series rollercoaster and often engage in what I like to call the ‘sequel prayer to the book gods’ before reading a connected title. It goes something like this: ‘Please don’t let this book be totally hideous’. (Just to be safe, I like to round this off with the ‘Please don’t let the author have completely changed the characters into people I hardly recognise’ hymn.) Well, guess what? The book gods definitely listened to me this outing. Leave Me Breathless was a million miles from hideous. In fact, the adjective I would use is ‘fabulous’.
If tattooed not-so-bad boys driving ’69 GTOs are your thing (they are mine, without a doubt), you need to read this. Immediately.
Tickle your fancy? Click on the below links to purchase a copy of Leave Me Breathless or Rock Me.
Amazon.co.uk:
Amazon.com:
*Please note that the first book in the Ross Siblings series, Unleashed, is not referenced in this review but is available from both Amazon.co.uk (Kindle ; Paperback) and Amazon.com (Kindle ; Paperback).
