Liberating Lacey
RECOMMENDED: Liberating Lacey by Anne Calhoun is $2.99 – which may be full price, but since the author got her rights back from Ellora’s Cave, that is a great price. This is one of the earliest and still among the best erotic contemporary romances I’ve read. It’s an older woman/younger man romance, and also addresses class differences. It has a 3.84-star average, too. Have you read it? Do you recommend it, too?
Newly divorced Lacey Meyers wasted too many years yawning through sex in the missionary position. Now she’s looking for a hookup with a man who can make her shatter. What she gets is a hot younger cop with handcuffs. . .and he’s not afraid to use them. Hunter Anderson knows the score-though classy, successful women like Lacey might play with guys like him, at the end of the evening, they walk. But when one night leads to another and then another, he finds himself getting too attached to a woman he can’t have. Lacey knows Hunter-gorgeous, hard-edged and eight years younger-won’t want anything permanent. No matter how hot and daring the sex is between them, she can’t mistake adventurous sex for emotional involvement. They both know it’s got to end, and soon, or someone’s going to get hurt. But can either of them go back to life without the other?
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The Best Kind of Trouble by Lauren Dane is $1.99. This is book 1 of the Hurley brothers series, and is about a former rock star and a librarian in a small town who once upon a time had a serious fling with him – which she’d prefer he didn’t bring up. (That never works out the way they want, right?) This book has a 3.85-star average.
She has complete control…and he’s determined to take it away
A librarian in the small town of Hood River, Natalie Clayton’s world is very nearly perfect. After a turbulent childhood and her once-wild ways, life is now under control. But trouble has a way of turning up unexpectedly—especially in the tall, charismatically sexy form of Paddy Hurley….
And Paddy is the kind of trouble that Natalie has a taste for.
Even after years of the rock-and-roll lifestyle, Paddy never forgot the two wickedly hot weeks he once shared with Natalie. Now he wants more…even if it means tempting Natalie and her iron-grip control. But there’s a fine line between well-behaved and misbehaved—and the only compromise is between the sheets!
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Slow Surrender by Cecilia Tan is .99 right now. This is book 1 in the Struck by Lightning Series by an author who just received a Lifetime Achievement Award at RT last week. This book has a 3.94-star average, and some reviewers said they found it incredibly hot and thought it had some psychological thriller aspects, too.
He pushes her sexual boundaries . . .
From the moment waitress Karina meets him in a New York bar, she knows James is different. Daring. Dominating. Though he hides his true identity from her, the mysterious, wealthy businessman anticipates her every desire and fulfills her secret fantasies. Awakened by his touch, Karina discovers a wild side she hadn’t known existed and nothing is off limits.
She aches for more . . .
What begins as an erotic game soon escalates to a power play that blurs the line between pleasure and pain. Even as she capitulates to James’s sensual demands, Karina craves more. She wants his heart, his soul. She wants his love . . . and she’ll break all the rules to get it.
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Am I mistaken that these are not only erotic romance, but all are BDSM or D/s-themed? I see signal words (which tell me to keep the hell away) in the blurbs, but I can only confirm this for Slow Surrender.
So I mean to ask, how much kink/BDSM is really in Dane’s and Calhoun’s novels? I’m especially curious about Liberating Lacey, because I keep getting recommendations for it.
The Lauren Dane is NOT a BDSM story. It’s a rock star romance and less steamy than some of her other books. Her characters might play around with some of those elements during sexy times, but that’s not what they’re all about.
Oh, BTW, LOVE the Hurley Brothers, and while this is actually book one of the series, it’s technically book two as brother Damian was the main character in the last of the Lush books. That looks very confusing.
Liberating Lacey is WONDERFUL. Full stop. So glad she got her rights back (and new cover is a massive improvement over the original one). I paid full price for it years ago and will buy again now to support Anne Calhoun. Heroine is strong, knows herself, acts intelligently. Hero is a cop, all-round good guy, has some conflicts, is younger than her (!). No crazy drama — just two decent people trying to figure each other out + insanely hot sex scenes.
Liberating Lacey is not BDSM. It is definitely an erotic romance as the (really hot) sexual relationship is integral to the development of the romantic one. I liked that not only is Lacey older and there’s the exploration of class differences, but it’s the rare romance when the heroine isn’t just of a posher background, she’s also making her own money. Lots of it. But no worries, Hunter more than holds his own.
It was well worth buying even with the old cover, and that’s saying something. Calhoun is an author who can write intense, sexy stuff without the BDSM (though she does have some titles that include it).
REALLY annoyed by various descriptions/reviews of Liberating Lacey. I clicked through your link to Amazon, and saw reviews using words like “cougar”. I’m thinking this woman is in her mid-40s or maybe 50s…
No, she’s 36. 36. Which makes the guy 28 or so. which frankly, not that big an age difference. They are both in that same part of life that’s old enough to be used to adulthood but still pre-middle age.
And now I feel an attack of feminist rant coming on… HOW CAN WE BE ANNOYED WITH HOLLYWOOD FOR THINKING WOMEN OVER 30 ARE “OLD” WHEN WE DO THE SAME WHEN DESCRIBING A BOOK ABOUT A 36-YEAR OLD?
Put it this way, if this book were a romance between a 28 year old woman and a 36 year old man, nobody would be mentioning the whole “may december” thing AT ALL.
Gotte give a shoutout to Liberating Lacey as well. I bought it again with the new cover and reread it again this week and it is and stays one of my favourite erotic romances of all times.
I think the age difference itself isn’t very large and I completely agree with Anne that the cougar stereotype is total nonsense. In this book the age difference rather is a device to show that Lacey and Hunter seem to be at different points in their lives.
And while there scenes in which they play out different fantasies, they do not come across as a BDSM couple, just trying out new (and hot) things.
In short: Love this book!
@ Anne – but it is an erotic romance with a heroine who’s eight years older than the hero rather than the reverse, and that’s not very common in the genre. The class differences end up being a bigger issue in the novel, and as I noted in my previous comment, that sort of thing is usually in the opposite direction, too. To me, the conflict in Liberating Lacey and what Lacey and Hunter deal with was much more interesting than the all-too-common contemporary romance “conflict” of “but it’s just casual, we can’t fall in luuuuuuuuv!”.
The reviews I read before I ordered Liberating Lacey never referred to her as a cougar. An all-caps rant because some people on Amazon did so seems excessive. I really hope that having some reviewers use that term won’t keep anyone from trying the book.
I’m with you Anne. I’m 5.5 years older than my husband and someone called me a cougar for it. I was like, huh? Cougar should be at least 15 years older and ideally more. I’m thinking a woman in her very late 40’s to mid 60’s going for a guy in his 20’s.
Bought and read Liberating Lacey – it was great! Yes, the conflict about socioeconomic status was really well done – just a really believable conflict that two nice people could have, and struggle with, and I really bought into the whole book. Recommend highly.
re triggers – the “bad copy” game play might be a trigger. It’s not dom/sub like many books, but it is the hero guy pretending to be a bad cop barging into the house and chasing her a little – it’s consensual and fits perfectly in the story, but the game is pretty intense and I can see how that particular see (and it’s a very key one in the book) could be a trigger for someone with an assault in their past. Just saying.
And at the end, reading the book list, I connected Ms. Calhoun with Breath on Embers – a really emotional holiday novella I read several years ago.
So glad for the heads up – much backlist!