Help Wanted by Marie Rochelle is a great contemporary, erotic romance featuring a hardcore biker with a soft heart and a prim but far from proper flight attendant. Together they steam up the pages and deliver an entertaining and very pleasurable novel. This is erotica at its best and color holds no place in this interracial relationship. Jim might be a “White boy” as Keira teases but he has rhythm in and out of bed. Keira is also comfortable in her relationship as a Black woman dating a White man and only when they go out to eat does she receive less than welcoming looks from the women who find Jim attractive. Jim is a great character and I fell in love with him instantly despite his major blunder towards the end of the novel. His way of keeping Keira off kilter is really sexy and just a touch or a look is enough to have her panting. “What a man, what a mighty good man,” very aptly stated by En Vogue. Help Wanted is just over 160 pages but so much happens in the novel and most of all it holds the reader’s attention to the very last page.

Help Wanted by Marie Rochelle is the story of two people wrestling with demons from their past, thrown together by no desire of their own. However, simmering beneath their dislike for each other is a deeper emotion. Keira Winters is the sole survivor of a plane crash. Jim Russell still bears the scars of a disastrous marriage. They’ve known each other for years through mutual friends but the only spark between them is dislike stemming from a confrontation they had in the past. A business deal eventually forces them to face their animosity. Soon their dislike for each other fizzles and dies amid clashing tongues and fusing bodies. Initially, stunned by their sexual chemistry, Keira and Jim grow closer, although no closer to finding a solution to their problems; her ever present dreams and his mean-spirited ex. Then Jim’s son, feeling threatened by Keira, utters a lie bringing their budding relationship to a crashing halt amid very hateful words from Jim directed at Keira. Even after his son’s eventual confession Jim knows he’s lost Keira. He is determined to win her back and pulls out all the stops with the help of his friends. Will Jim’s determination finally win him his place back in Keira’s heart and life for good?

~ Susan for ARe Cafe ( )