STRANGER

Author: Megan Hart ISBN: 9780373605279 1/2009 EROTIC Publisher: SPICE

I pay strangers to sleep with me. I have my reasons.... But they're not the ones you'd expect. For starters, I'm a funeral director taking over my dad's business. Not exactly the kind of person you'd expect to fork over cash for the lust and urgency only live skin-to-skin contact can create. Looking at me, you wouldn't have a clue I carry this little secret so close it creases up like the folds of a fan. Tight. Personal. Ready to unravel in the heat of the moment. Unsurprisingly, my line of work brings me face-to-face with loss. So I decided long ago that paying for sex would be one of the best (and arousing) ways to save myself from the one thing that would eventually cut far too deep. But Sam was a mistake. Literally. I signed on to "pick up" a stranger at a bar, but took Sam home instead. And now that I've felt his heat, his sweat and everything else, can I really go back to impersonal? Let's just hope he never finds out about my other life....

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

STRANGER is one of the best erotic romance novels I’ve ever read, even though the heroine is sleeping with other men through much of the book. Grace is a funeral director who took over the family business from her overbearing father. She’s overwhelmed by the duties of her job, like the constant round-the-clock calls. Also, she’s witnessed too much distress after deaths and doesn’t want that for herself if her loved one died. But, she has a hearty sex drive and desire to act out fantasy scenarios, so she hires a discreet “gentleman” service so she can meet these needs.

It’s at the start of one of these “dates” that she meets Sam, and thinking he’s her rentboy for the night, has sex with him. She’s horrified by the mistake but treats it as a one-night stand she didn’t have to pay for. Later, his father dies, and his family uses her services so they meet again. Sam pursues her, but in a half-hearted manner that allows her to develop a sexual relationship with a rentboy named Jack while trying to figure out what is going on with Sam.

Clearly, neither Grace nor the alcoholic Sam is your average romance hero type, but Spice is a more literary line for erotic romance, and this book is nothing if not erotic. Hart is a master with character development and sex scenes. After reading this book, I definitely want to see what else she has to offer as a writer.

Heather Hiestand