After reading this I want to find my own Stranger, hot and a little complicated
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Last year, a significant proportion of my friends were reading Fifty Shades of Grey and were quite bemused at my reluctance to finish the trilogy. ‘Why don’t you read another book like it?’ they asked in dismay, proceeding to recommend authors to me. Megan Hart was one of the names suggested, so when Harlequin offered me a copy of Stranger, I decided to try the erotic/spicy subgenre of romance again.

Let me tell you now – Megan Hart trumps Christian Grey any day of the week. This lady writes spice WITH a plot and for that I am grateful that I now have something to discuss with my friends!

The blurb immediately captured my interest – Grace Frawley runs a funeral home. Unusual. She also pays to sleep with strangers. Definitely unusual – we never hear about women paying for sex. Why does Grace choose to sleep with strangers? What happens when a meeting with Sam wrecks her stranger theory and attempts to capture her heart?

Yes, this book is spicy – we open with Grace’s hook-up in a hotel and there’s hot sex very early on in the novel. But then sex takes a backseat as we find out why Grace chooses to live this way. After all, she’s young, pretty and smart. What’s stopping her? Grace sees death every day and also sees the extreme grief as couples as involuntarily parted. She had a fiancé once, but now that’s it. Rent boys fill her needs without the relationship obligations. There’s a lot of musing about death – what could be after and the different reactions of the bereaved. I found this fascinating in addition to how a funeral home actually runs. Hart treats the topic with extreme sensitivity and a deep insight – this alone is worth reading Stranger.

Stranger also looks at the different relationships between men and women – it seems that all the main characters have got problems, which to Grace seems like a good reason to stay away from coupling up. Her office manager Shelly is with a nice-but-boring boy – should she take a chance for a more exciting relationship? Grace’s dad has just retired and is under her mum’s feet. Plus her sister Hannah is distancing herself from his husband…add a widow who wants to bury her husband cheaply so she can go on a cruise and it’s no wonder Grace is wary!

The stranger in the book is introduced within the first few pages – Sam. Grace thought Sam was the man she paid for, but it turns out he was just in the bar at the right time! Sam doesn’t quit, he wants a relationship with Grace, no matter how corny the route to convince her is. He’s a nice guy, but one with a few issues to work through. Luckily Hart has provided several strong male characters, such as Jared, Grace’s apprentice. He’s the friend, witty and hardworking. He starts to disappear as the novel progresses, but I did wonder if he and Grace could have a romantic future. There’s also Jack, a young man looking to make some money offering ‘services’ before going to university. Grace takes a shine (and a few other things) to Jack, teaching him the ways of the paid relationship business. I liked Jack – he was eager to please, honest and a realistic hero.

Hart writes very well – there’s no awkward sexual clichés and there’s also plenty of plot. I don’t think constant spicy reads are for me, but I’m quite happy to take the occasional dip into worlds Megan Hart creates.

Thank you to Harlequin Australia for the copy of this book.

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Let me start by saying this was my first Megan Hart book and I didn't know what to expect. I was pretty happy with the story as a whole, but the ending let me down a little so that is why it got 3 stars. I instantly loved Grace. Her over all attitude and sarcastic comments and thoughts were great and straight forward. Its nice having a female lead that knows what she wants and is ok with herself and her life. I liked how she was still ok when it changed. Sam and Jack where both smokin hot and yummy in different ways. I didn't know who I wanted her to be with more. Jack was a hot bad boy type with his ear ring and sparkling 1000 watt smile. He knew just how to make her sweat every time. But he also was personal with her. With him it could have been more if she wanted it to be. She treated him with respect and he really like her for it. You saw pieces of the real him when he was with Grace. Now Sam on the other hand was hot in his dominating presence. He gets in Graces head to where she can't think of anything but him. Even after the shock of him being an actual stranger instead of her date wore off and they have the great reunion at the funeral home she still can't get enough. His persistence is what made him hot. It was sexy even when they were just talking about cowboy sheets. The sexual tension was always there. It was awesome!! I loved the whole thing everything about her pushy dad who should be smacked for taking her laptop and smacked again for going into her personal stuff and then saying something about it at the party . WHAT! Like that couldn't wait. To her selfish sister who needed to grow up and accept the choices she made and not take it out on Grace for not making the same bad choices. But what bummed me out was how Sam acted when Grace told him about her dates before they got together. So what if she paid guys so she could have exactly what she wanted. First of all she didn't rub it in his face or anything .she didn't even want him to know. Like it her fault she asked for a hot stranger to pick her up that night and Sam a hot stranger came a long and picked her up. He actually got ticked because she was seeing Jack when they were talking. What is that this isn't high school. She stopped seeing him the night she saw sam with that chic and knew she just wanted to be with Sam.. What she did before they got together was none of his business. Just like it was wasn't her dads'. Then how after he stormed out a length of time goes by , she's all sad then she sees him again and she cries and then she takes him back. That was it. There was so much great build up and side stories like Shelly and Jared to have such a swift ending let me down. Even though she tied up all the loose ends in the story I was expecting more. I'll read more from her because the story as a whole was awesome and I am going to cross my fingers for better endings. ( )

Let me start by saying this was my first Megan Hart book and I didn't know what to expect. I was pretty happy with the story as a whole, but the ending let me down a little so that is why it got 3 stars. I instantly loved Grace. Her over all attitude and sarcastic comments and thoughts were great and straight forward. Its nice having a female lead that knows what she wants and is ok with herself and her life. I liked how she was still ok when it changed. Sam and Jack where both smokin hot and yummy in different ways. I didn't know who I wanted her to be with more. Jack was a hot bad boy type with his ear ring and sparkling 1000 watt smile. He knew just how to make her sweat every time. But he also was personal with her. With him it could have been more if she wanted it to be. She treated him with respect and he really like her for it. You saw pieces of the real him when he was with Grace. Now Sam on the other hand was hot in his dominating presence. He gets in Graces head to where she can't think of anything but him. Even after the shock of him being an actual stranger instead of her date wore off and they have the great reunion at the funeral home she still can't get enough. His persistence is what made him hot. It was sexy even when they were just talking about cowboy sheets. The sexual tension was always there. It was awesome!! I loved the whole thing everything about her pushy dad who should be smacked for taking her laptop and smacked again for going into her personal stuff and then saying something about it at the party . WHAT! Like that couldn't wait. To her selfish sister who needed to grow up and accept the choices she made and not take it out on Grace for not making the same bad choices. But what bummed me out was how Sam acted when Grace told him about her dates before they got together. So what if she paid guys so she could have exactly what she wanted. First of all she didn't rub it in his face or anything .she didn't even want him to know. Like it her fault she asked for a hot stranger to pick her up that night and Sam a hot stranger came a long and picked her up. He actually got ticked because she was seeing Jack when they were talking. What is that this isn't high school. She stopped seeing him the night she saw sam with that chic and knew she just wanted to be with Sam.. What she did before they got together was none of his business. Just like it was wasn't her dads'. Then how after he stormed out a length of time goes by , she's all sad then she sees him again and she cries and then she takes him back. That was it. There was so much great build up and side stories like Shelly and Jared to have such a swift ending let me down. Even though she tied up all the loose ends in the story I was expecting more. I'll read more from her because the story as a whole was awesome and I am going to cross my fingers for better endings. ( )

Originally read in September 2009re-read in Feb 2011This was another re-read. Sam is the brother of Dirty's Dan Stewart. He's been in New York but comes back to town when their father dies. Grace's job means that she sees people dealing with loss and grief all the time. As a result, she's so frightened of being bereft, she doesn't venture into relationship territory at all. And then she meets Sam. Like Dan, he's persistent. And charming and sexy and hot.What is unusual about this book is that much of the sex in it is not actually between Grace and Sam - a lot of it is between Grace and Jack. We first met Jack in Dirty when he's involved in a threesome with Dan and Elle. Inspired by those events, Jack has taken up work as an escort and that is how Grace meets him. It sounds strange, but it works. Trust me.This book was excellent right up until the end, where there wasn't enough to satisfy me about how Grace and Sam were going to work out their HEA. I needed at least another conversation - the ending was just too abrupt to satisfy. Sam's "issues" came up late in the book and I can't say that I truly understood them or what would happen in the future. Otherwise, it was really good and beautifully written. The scene where Grace is providing funeral services to a couple who has just lost their young son had me in tears. ( )