Don't Tempt Me
3.5 Stars

The primary romance between Jason Guthrie and his shy new neighbor, Honor Brown, is sweet and sexy. Unfortunately, the secondary romance focusing on Honor's outspoken friend, Lexie Perkins, and another neighbor, Sullivan Dean, falls rather flat mainly due to Sullivan's judgemental attitude.

While Honor initially comes across as a naive and innocent Mary Sue, it is clear that she has a solid backbone and is quite capable of standing up for herself when the need arises. Jason has a tendency toward alpha-hole-ness but manages to refrain from crossing the line perhaps because his domineering tendencies are mitigated by his obvious need to care for those around him whether it be his despondent brother, his heartbroken nephew, or his reticent new neighbor.

Lexie and Sullivan's relationship is lacking the charm of Honor and Jason's. Lexie is strong, confident, and loyal to a fault. She has a tremendous capacity for love, and as such, Sullivan's faulty perceptions of her as vapid and frivolous are exceedingly annoying. To be honest, he is not worthy of her and his sudden acceptance of her is unconvincing.

The next book focuses on the other two men in the neighborhood, Jason's brother Hogan Guthrie, and the local sheriff, Nathan Hawley. I look forward to reading their stories. ( )

Read by Will Damron - I love his style of narration. It's pure storytelling - not really narration!

It doesn't have a riveting beginning but the novel grows and grows into a tour de force.

Following two heroines is unusual - their relationships - Jason and Ana, and Lexie and Sullivan - are both incredible - all four are unforgettable characters. There are some beautiful love scenes. The author puts us inside the head of each of these four characters - equally - it is a remarkable feat.

In my journey into the romance novel, I dont think I've read anything quite like this book. It's so full of honesty and equating love to nurturing. The latter is nothing new in the world of the protective alpha in the romance genre, but this was alpha tamped down to incredible restraint, intuition and caring. ( )

Review in my Merry Bookmas Week 2 Vlog
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAXoVnsKqMc&feature=youtu.be ( )

Sweet read. Two romances in one, with both the heroine and her best friend getting HEAs. ( )

Well, there was at least an attempt at a plot, and Foster does better at weaving the lust into the storyline than she did in other books.

I never really felt that I got to know Honor well enough to know why she was the way she was. Why she felt she had to be independent and do everything herself. Why she felt if she asked for help it was showing weakness. Why she felt if she showed emotion that others would think she was a burden or too needy. I didn't understand why she felt she couldn't tell anyone about her grandfather with dementia (though I think that had more to do with the rest of the family than with the grandfather himself). Why not just tell your new neighbors that you have a relative with health problems and that's why you sometimes leave at odd hours? It's not as big a deal as Honor seems to make it.

It's a bit of a suspension of belief that a number of guys would find their true loves all in so short a span of time. It was nice to get out of the boilerplate plots of only focusing one one couple though. And since Lexie and Honor are like sisters to each other, I guess it makes some kind of fictional sense that they would both find hunky true loves in the same neighborhood.

I didn't get the sense that Hogan and Valerie were that into each other--but by the end of the book, they seem like they are on their way to a true love relationship as well. We'll see if Colt's new girl becomes his long-time girlfriend as well.

I liked Diesel--even if I haven't figured him out yet. He's Colt's dog but seems to also be bonded to Honor--I'm not sure if that's because Colt cares about Honor and Diesel senses that or if Diesel's just got some kind of training. (He's obviously trained since he sits on command.)

I liked that Sullivan has a calling to work with kids who are troubled and that he makes it a priority in his life.

I didn't like that the couples seem to fall into bed with each other--though at least the relationships become more than just a one night stand--but with Sullivan and Lexie in particular at first it seems like that is all both are planning. ( )