I normally don’t devote an entire review to a novella, but One Wild Night had issues. GIF worthy issues. This is a celebrity romance, a sub-genre I’m always drawn to, but only seems to work out for me half the time. As SB Sarah has said, I’m interested in stories that feature public vs private lives. Movie stars, royalty, rock stars, all of that intrigues me.
Now, I’d really like to read about celebrity romances with a male celebrity who is genuinely a nice guy, the type of person I imagine that Terry Crews, The Rock, and Chris Evans might be. Instead movie star/ rock star heroes sometimes fall into this “arrogant sack of dicks that the heroine must fix” category that is so not appealing.
That’s the case with Paxton Myles, the hero here. He’s a famous movie star and he meets Kaylee Rose Burton, a kindergarten teacher at his movie premiere. Kaylee is there to support the father of her best friend who is making his directorial debut. She literally walks right into Paxton and is immediately embarrassed. Paxton is thrilled:
She finally manages to shrug out of my grip, and I hold both hands up in a show of surrender. She lifts her chin and finally holds eye contact with me in mock confidence. I can see how fucking nervous she is by the little dance she’s doing and it’s making my dick hard. I love when I can make women squirm.
Dude. Gross.
Making women nervous makes your dick hard?
Yeah, that makes me want to spend a lot of time with him.
So now Paxton has an erection, which must not happen often, because he’s downright obsessed with Kaylee.
She made his dick hard! She’s a magical unicorn!
When it comes to Paxton’s boner, well:
So then he’s talking to another male celebrity (Phillip):
“She’s not Hollywood,” he scoffs and steps aside as Jenna Berg and Ashton Walters make their way toward us down the red carpet.
“No. No, she’s not. Which makes me all the more interested,” I reply, also stepping aside. Jenna and Ashton are the new “it” couple in Hollywood. Cameras flash, blinding me. I take this as my cue to get the hell inside and away from this red carpet.
“I give it five months,” Phillip says under his breath, his eyebrow rising as we watch the power couple work the red carpet. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure he plays for both teams.”
I openly laugh, because I’m ninety-nine percent sure Phillip is right.
Wow. Phillip and Paxton are…
I don’t think Phillip or Paxton understand what bisexuality is. The fact that Ashton may also be attracted to men doesn’t invalidate his relationship with a woman. He can be in a relationship with a woman and still be bisexual. What do they think the “bi” means? Maybe they’ve never heard of it? Maybe the idea hasn’t penetrated all that homophobia they’re carrying around?
Jesus Christ. Paxton sucks.
So then we switch to Kaylee’s POV. She watches the movie, which stars Paxton, and has a pretty hot sex scene it. Paxton watches her watching the sex scene:
Suddenly he was there, pushing into my personal space, his mouth at my ear. His Southern accent that had me in a puddle earlier was now twisted to match to match the character on the screen. “He’s a good looking bloke, isn’t he?”
I had to shake my head to clear it of the stupor. My chin tipped up toward him, my eyes narrowed in a scowl. “Excuse me?” It came out an accusation.
He just sent me one of those belly-flipping grins, the magnitude of it lit up in the frames flicking across the screen. “That bloke there on the screen. You seem a little…impressed.”
“Um, wow. Someone’s full of themselves, aren’t they?”
I sent the words with all the confidence I could muster, hoping they would knock him down a notch.
His cockiness just grew. Those full lips tweaked into a smirk. “Oh, Kaylee Rose. Don’t act like I couldn’t tell you wanted to climb right over these chairs and fall into that screen. And here I am, in the flesh. No need to go pretending when you can have the real deal.”
UGH. I would rather pass a gallstone than spend another minute with this dickbag.
To add to his charm, he also thinks with his boner:
I’m Paxton Myles. I can have any woman in Hollywood, or better yet, the free world. Yet, a fucking petite blonde kindergarten teacher who literally trips into my arms is what’s causing my dick to react this way.
No, Paxton, your dick is what’s causing your dick to behave that way. Kaylee isn’t responsible for your penis. You are. We are really, really not here for Boner Led Heroes, if you missed my rant earlier.
Also:
But wait. It gets better.
Or worse, actually. Paxton corners Kaylee at the after-party.
Casually, he set his hip against the bar. “So, tell me, Kaylee Rose, how is it you know Eleanor Ward and her family? You seem a little…out of place.”
I felt my brow draw. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I wanted to be offended, but his observation wasn’t any different than what I’d been thinking about all night.
He chuckled, the sound so seductive all those secret places inside me clenched with desire.
Damn him.
He edged closer, and when he spoke, his breath washed over me like a delicious breeze. “Oh, come on beautiful girl, there’s no need to play coy. You’re much to sweet to belong in the midst of all these vultures. They’d rip you to shreds.”
Arching a brow, I leaned back and met his eyes. “Vultures? You mean vultures like you?”
He laughed, deep and low, the man encroaching into my space, towering over me as he dipped his nose to run it along my hairline and down to my ear. “I’d gladly tear you apart, Kaylee Rose. But I promise you, it will be in the very best way. So good, in fact, you’ll be begging me to do it again and again.”
I…WHAT? Did he just suggest he’s gonna sexy-tear her apart like a carrion bird?
Did he just try to make vultures pulling strips of rotting flesh off a corpse a sex thing?
Also, I don’t think there’s a “very best way” to be torn apart. I think being torn apart would just suck generally.
Also how is his breath a “delicious breeze”? I kind of think that breath can be, at best, “good” or “minty.” Like, that’s what you’re hoping for.
And how does one’s brow “draw?” Draw what?
Anyway, Kaylee is alarmed by her attraction to Paxton and goes to the restroom to clear her head. Except Paxton, who I’m now starting to think of as a stalker, is waiting outside for her:
In a flash of playful mischief, a smirk pulled at one side of his mouth. “Oh, I don’t know…a gorgeous woman suddenly runs into the restroom to remove herself from the unwanted advances of a man. It sounds like Ditch the Douchebag 101 to me. And that’s not a label I take so kindly to.”
Okay so Paxton is self-aware enough to realize that his advances are unwanted but he resents her for removing herself from a situation she’s uncomfortable in. That’s not a reflection of rape culture or anything.
Also this guy is as charming as…how do I say this delicately…a violent case of dysentery.
So Kaylee has a one night stand with Paxton, which as a reader is hard for me to understand because he’s triggering my “mace him in the face” instinct pretty hard. She gets up in the morning and sneaks out before he wakes up, only the paparazzi catch her doing the walk of shame.
Kaylee teaches at an elite private school where teachers are apparently never allowed to have sex, and the photos get her fired. Meanwhile Paxton wakes up and realizes that he wants more sexing with Kaylee! WHAT IS THIS MADNESS!
So, again completely ignoring boundaries she’s clearly set, he finds her and finds out she has no job and she’s being slut shamed in the media. And Paxton’s response is to immediately and sincerely apologize and use his PR clout to launch a campaign against slut shaming in her defense.
KIDDING.
No, he decides that since she’s conveniently unemployed, not she can come to London on a press tour with him so they can smex more.
Paxton, you fucking douchebag.
And she does, and then some feelings get involved, and if you want to read the rest go ahead but I don’t recommend it. The only reason I finished One Wild Night is because it’s short and because I wanted to warn the Bitchery away from its truly toxic hero.
Dudes like Paxton are not the men I want to read about, and they certainly aren’t heroic in my mind. If any good came out of this novella it’s that I read it before investing in any of longer books in the series.
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Aaand here is the reason why I usually avoid celebrity romance like the plague. It’s so easy to write a douchebag hero in this genre.
He comes across very predatory btw. I would be seriously anxious if a man behaved like that around me. Just no.
I am DYING about this sexy vulture action. Up next, a vulture shifter series, which nobody asked for.
And you had me fooled with the anti slut shaming bit, you wonderful minx!
I think I know why she slept with him. Sometimes when a guy is persistent enough, it starts to feel easier to just let him have what he wants so he’ll stop pushing, especially if his pheromones are attractive enough to confuse the issue when he’s sufficiently up in your personal space. Sort of the unwanted sex equivalent of innocent people confessing to crimes to make the interrogators stop yelling at them. It’s not a good idea, but it’s an understandable bad one.
My relationship with romances featuring celebrities has an even lower success rate than yours, for what it’s worth. There’s the asshole factor, and then there’s the… well, the sweet kindergarten teacher factor. The heroines in these things are always Sweet and Wholesome and Clean Cut unlike All Those Hollywood Hoes, and it always ends up a lot of slut-shaming of female Hollywood, both directly and indirectly. I’m just not there for romances where everyone but the heroine gets slut-shamed, and I think female celebrities deserve romance too, damnit.
Vultures is right up that alley. Instalust with no patience or discretion attached is like hunger, isn’t it?
At least, I’m conditioned to think that. I read some passage in a feminist text like that: ‘John loves Jane not as Jane loves John but as John loves chocolate’. (I’m hoping that was Shere Hite or something, but it’s probably Germaine Greer. Sigh.)
That’s probably why there has to be all this protesting too much from the dude: to his surprise, he must have THAT particular woman. It doesn’t scan that well. Hunger is indiscriminate. We know that consciously and subconsciously.
Hey now, I’ve worked with a lot of wildlife and in particular a lot of birds and this is down right disrespectful to vultures. Vultures are very intelligent birds that can be quite nice and do the world a lot of good via ridding it of carrion. In countries where vultures are endangered, there are a lot of public health issues associated with that.
What I’m saying is, vultures are smart and do the world some good and don’t deserve to be compared to this asshole.
@RaccoonLady
If I’m included in that, I wasn’t intending any (additional?) symbolic violence to real-life vultures. I figured the predatory dude’s choice of meat-eating animal for his metaphor was indiscriminate/opportunistic, like his sexual appetites as I see them.
The good qualities of vultures you mention reminds me of an Australian memoir that I think is selling well, The Trauma Cleaner .
…And now I’m actually surprised there don’t appear to be vulture-shifters in paranormal suspense. Vulture forensic scientists. I mean, there’s that zombie detective show, based on a comic. Why not? And abusive people often combine animal abuse with violence against other people, so interesting criminology to showcase.
So much ugh in so short a book, which dovetails perfectly (sadly) with our previous discussion about this kind of guy. I’m impressed and horrified that you stuck with it, Elyse. A drink and a shower are in order, as well as the thanks of a grateful nation.
Speaking of deserving comparison to this ‘hero’.
Just WHY are y’all forever angelizing Chris Evans over there?
That guy lent his star power to demonizing neuro-minority people AS KIDS. Just what does it take to knock him off his pedestal?
My mother hates Shane Jacobson – who is WAY more avuncular than Evans – just for having a similar body type and bearing to the teacher who inflicted educational negligence on me just like Evans’ character in Evans star turn in “Gifted” pushes for, against a resisting little girl .
Chris Evans may not model toxic masculinity, but he picked out that indie movie where he voices toxic myths about gifted (aka asynchronous) people, especially gifted kids and their development.
And you know what, that toxic rhetoric in “Gifted” strongly echoes the way abusive men DARVO the ‘kind’ (self-sacrificing) women they target and mislead women we all know to be sweeties into believing they are the meanies when they can’t comply with all abusers’ unreasonable demands. (Cf Don Hennessy’s work.)
Evans’ character claims a gifted girl has to be schooled with age-peers at grade level to “dumb her down into a decent human being”, and avert her becoming one of the catered-for who supposedly become “congressmen” (a code word for ‘narcissistic sociopath’ I think we can all decode fluently now).
That is such BS. It is SO NOT true that gifted kids lack empathy or a keen sense of justice. Those characteristics are so common among gifted kids that they’re pretty good diagnostic criteria. There is no need for moral panic that gifted kids will use their powers for evil if they are validated for doing their best in all areas. Not for compliance, not for the quality of their ‘pretending to be normal’ camouflage.
There’s actually a book/novella about Vulture Shifters – Big Flight by Zenina Masters. It is 18th of her Shifting Crossroads and I’d recommend the whole series. Where else can you get stories about hedgehogs, pandas, bats, manatees….
@Jeanette: I think the hedgehog shifter one was reviewed on here a while back. Not very positively.
Well done, Elyse! Wonderful review!!!
Thanks for the warning. I always wonder about the authors who write this kind of “romance”.
Full of himself and talks during movies, what a catch.
Suddenly I’m feeling much better about my celebrity romance novel. For one thing, my male lead isn’t a rapey twatwaffle led by his dick.
Yea, I read this one and I never really understood his attraction to her. So I didn’t enjoy the story. Then there was this over the top drama with another character. It was just too much. Great review.
Kaylee teaches at an elite private school where teachers are apparently never allowed to have sex, and the photos get her fired.
It’s actually quite common for private Christian schools to have “morality” clauses in teachers’ contracts. Even in “liberal” California. And because it’s a private school, the teachers have no legal or union protection.
@RaccoonLady
I apologize, you are of course right in that vultures are rad af and don’t deserve comparison with this book’s douchecanoe male lead.
I am here for Zyva’s vulture forensic scientists! You’ve made me a believer…someone write it.
I have been down much more dubious fictional roads
The negative review of a hedgehog book was by a different pair of authors. Apparently hedgehog shifters are a big thing!
I really needed a good laugh today, these GIF’s are everything!Great review Elyse, and I back up your fight against Boner Led Romance (ugh!!)
Man, I wanna read that story now! Preferably with a hero that’s actually likeable, but still.
:: idly wondering how many of Nicola’s rapidly increasing upvotes are due squarely to the word “twatwaffle”, leading to stock rhetorical question about why other people’s dialects always have better words ::
:: not-so-idly wondering if it is Akismet’s fault these boards no longer remember my name from one page to the next ::
I can only think of one single title where the hero could be substituted for your Favourite Hollywood Chris – beg pardon, I tell a lie – TWO stories in which the movie star hero is actually a hero. The first, is called How To Sleep With A Movie Star by Kristin Harmel, and despite the cringey title is not bad from memory. The romance was cute to my teenaged mind, but the toxic female colleagues and workplace was a massive turnoff – so read at your own risk.
The second was a short story in an anthology Another Wild Wedding Night by Leslie Kelly, where the hero was *mistaken* to be a doucheknuckle and was actually a terrific guy. The only problem with that one was a similarly toxic female presence in the form of Crazy Stalker Lady with No Boundaries Whatsoever – so again, read at your own risk.
My husband asked me what I’m reading because I can’t stop making icky face and disgusted sounds.
I love your rant reviews.
God I remember a time when heroes like this ran rampant in contemporary romance (the 80s/90s were not a friendly place). I’m glad to see heroes like this be called out more often. His inner monologue is so fucking smarmy.
Does the heroine have an actual drive to teach that, y’know, would make her upset about being forced to leave it?
“No need to go pretending when you can have the real deal.”
Fantasy Payton can’t follow you to the bathroom and wait for you outside. If you want Fantasy Payton to go away, you just stop thinking about him. Fantasy Peyton wins!
Necroposting here, but I just wanted to add that apart from being a POS, the grammar in this novella is atrocious.