Don't Tempt Me by Lori Foster

I haven’t read a romance novel by Lori Foster in a while that didn’t revolve around the ultimate fighting lifestyle.  Even though I am not well-versed in ultimate fighting, I still find those novels, full of drama and hot shirtless men, quite exciting.  I was not sure how I was going to feel going back to her more contemporary romance (still with shirtless men, but less of the ultimate fighting). 

Don’t Tempt Me by Lori Foster, from the back cover, sounds like one of those two-in-one deals, but don’t let the description fool you.  Honor Brown is moving into a ramshackle house in a rough side of town in order to be closer to her ailing grandfather’s nursing home.  Her new neighbor, Jason Guthrie, isn’t keen on the idea of a woman living alone in this neighborhood, and is constantly offering his assistance, much to the dislike of Honor, a strikingly independent woman with no time, or patience for a romantic relationship.

In the secondary story, Honor’s best friend, Lexie Perkins meets Sullivan Dean, one of Honor’s other neighbors.  Lexie is a forward woman who knows what, and who she wants, and goes for it.  Sullivan doesn’t mind Lexie’s advances and together they embark on a wild affair.  However, Sullivan has a complex about party girls like Lexie and Lexie soon discovers that not everyone is will to look beyond the wild exterior.

One would think that these two stories would be equally featured within Don’t Tempt Me, but Jason and Honor take front and center stage, leaving the Sullivan and Lexie story slightly underdeveloped and wanting for more.  Honestly, I was left wanting for more from the Jason and Honor story, too.  There was so much going on outside their personal relationship that I found myself craving the chapters that focused on their intimate moments (and no, not just the sex scenes). 

Don’t Tempt Me has romance, danger, crazy family members, and humorous friendships.  My main complaint is that there doesn’t seem to be a good balance of all of those.  At any given moment I felt that the romance was at the bottom of the totem pole, so to speak, which is very unlike Lori Foster.  Conflict was coming at the characters from a million different directions and, totally unlike myself, I sort of wished that there was… less of it. 

I, also, wish that Foster had given Sullivan and Lexie their own novel, because what there was of their story in Don’t Tempt Me didn’t do them justice, in my opinion.  Foster gave us a quick and cute romance tale, but Sullivan and Lexie both have such independent lives and with Lexie’s wild passion I thought we would get an explosive romance between the two. 

Of course, Lori Foster gave us a great story with well-developed characters, per usual.  If you’re a big fan of her work, then you’ll enjoy this story.  It has everything we, as readers, have come to expect from Lori Foster’s novels. If you are interested in reading this book, but haven’t read any of Foster’s previous work, then I have some other novels to recommend to you for your first venture in her world of romance because this one pales in comparison to some of her other works.

Don’t Tempt Me comes out August 2016.  Look for it!