Love Bites by Ophelia London

Sharona Blaire is an auditor who is travelling from Miami to Sydney on business. Wandering into first class by mistake, Sharona compounds her errors by accidentally tipping a whole Bloody Mary over one of the first class passengers as she escorted back to economy class.  Later that evening Sharona goes to the hotel bar to relax. Deciding that the night is a bust she turns around to walk away, and manages to spill her drink over a gorgeous stranger – the same gorgeous stranger – for the second time that day. This breaks the ice and they start to talk, finding they have a real connection.

Although Sharona has never been a one night stand kind of girl she feels she could do with a confidence boost. She broke off her relationship with her fiancé (also her boss) about 6 months ago. He didn’t respect her then, and he doesn’t respect her now, meaning her work life is under pressure too. She isn’t looking forward to the next day’s work either, and she’s longing for a chance to escape reality, just for a little while, but will she go through with it?

"Something about being halfway around the world made her feel... unencumbered. Or maybe it was the effects of her Long Island iced tea combined with his dreamy, ocean-blue eyes."

Although Jeff is not somebody who makes a habit of having no strings attached nights of passion the American hottie he has just met who is insisting on no names or personal details being exchanged is hard to resist as the attraction between them is pretty intense. Conservation scientist Jeff is also fairly new on the singles scene – his marriage broke down a while ago after his wife betrayed his trust to sell some of his intellectual property and he hasn’t been interested in putting himself out there until the temptation of tonight. Although Jeff loves his job, he’s dreading tomorrow, as he’ll have the distraction of having to deal with an auditor...

This was a very interesting setting for a romance – a research boat looking at the travel and mating habits of the great white shark. There is a level of resentment and distrust between the main characters due to how the previous night ended and the baggage from their respective exes.

Sharona seemed very nice, although why she continued to work with her foul ex was a mystery, an auditing job isn’t that hard to come by! So often in romances the protagonists have really glamorous jobs and I thought it made a nice change to have a more prosaic profession. Jeff was a super hot, intelligent conservationist with a good sense of humour, described as having a grin that was 'an interesting cross between Han Solo and Thor'. What’s not to like?!

Since this is a novella there wasn’t much time for the story to build and their relationship developed between them very quickly, but given the nature of the setting, a one day boat trip with some time at the hotel before and after things would have to develop quickly to have any kind of story. There was a grand gesture which I felt was unnecessary and also a little unbelievable, but I thought this was an enjoyable story, and just the ticket if you wanted a quick escape with a short, untaxing read. I'd rate this as 3½ stars.

*Many thanks to the publishers, Entangled Publishing, and Netgalley for providing me with an e-arc of this book for my honest review.

Falling for her Soldier by Ophelia London

Ellie Bell used to be a professional ballet dancer until an injury led to her retirement. Now she teaches ballet to young children. Ellie has spent the last 11 months focussing on her work as she's been on a self-imposed man-free year to try and break herself of her bad habits of dating sexy bad boys who will just break her heart. Ellie's parents are both dead and the only real family she has is her brother Sam.

Sam is a soldier, and he's currently home, sporting a large scar as a reminder of his last tour. He was very badly injured while on a mission, and, knowing that news might be slow to filter through, his fellow soldier and good friend, Charlie emails Ellie to let her know what has happened. Ellie replies, and she and Charlie strike up an email correspondence. They feel very comfortable with each other, and get quite close over email and share some quite personal things. But Charlie hasn't emailed her since the unit returned home.

Ellie goes to visit Sam at the Warrior Centre, a centre for service men where Sam receives counselling and generally hangs out with friends. There, Sam, who is unaware that the two have emailed, introduces Ellie to Charlie, but he introduces her by his nickname, Hunter. Ellie has heard all about this guy 'Big Game Hunter', the man who goes through women at a rate of knots, and she doesn't have a high opinion of him. The fact that she finds Hunter charming and attractive is all the more reason to keep her distance from him, given the fact that he's just the type of man she's decided to avoid.

Charlie has come home hoping to turn over a new leaf as regards his womanising and he's disappointed that his reputation has soured Ellie's view of him. Rather than ruin her memories of Charlie he decides to try and improve her view of Hunter before he tells her the truth. He decides to volunteer at the centre, as Ellie does, and in addition, they work together on a fundraiser. But will it be enough?

This was a fairly enjoyable romance and very easy reading, but I found it a little frustrating that the characters would say they weren't going to do x and then go straight off and do it! There was also the issue of secret keeping. In real life, are you going to be able to keep your identity a secret in this way? Considering Charlie's family and friends live in the area, I can't believe he would have thought it was possible for more than a day or two.

On the plus side, I liked the healing side of this story. Charlie thought he was OK with what he'd been through on his last tour, but he had just been suppressing it. Similarly, Ellie still had lingering elements of resentment at the injury that ended her career.

There are no sex scenes in this book, but they are thinking about it :)

I had a suspicion while reading that this was part of a series, and it is, but it reads fine as stand-alone, I don't think reading this out of order is likely to spoil the others for you unless it's a surprise who ends up together. Book 1 in the series is called Playing at Love and features Charlie's sister, Tess. Book 2 is Speaking of Love which has friends of his, Mackenzie and Rick. I will certainly add those to my wishlist.