'Talk me Down' by Victoria DAHL

From the BLURB:

Molly Jenkins has one naughty little secret: her job as a bestselling erotic fiction author. Until her inspiration runs dry - thanks to a creepy ex - and it's time to skip town and move back to tiny Tumble Creek, Colorado.

One look at former high school hunk chief of police Ben Lawson and Molly is back in business. The town gossip is buzzing at her door and, worse still, a stalker seems to be watching her every move. Thankfully, her very own lawman has taken to coming over, often. The only problem now is that Molly may have to let the cat out of the bag about her chosen profession, and straitlaced Ben will definitely not approve…

It’s official; I am obsessed with the ‘Tumble Creek’ series. I absolutely LOVED this first book and over the Australia Day-long weekend I gobbled up all three books.

For one thing I adored the characters. Dahl twists usual romance conventions by having the heroine, Molly, be the pursuer in the relationship. She’s no wallflower and is happy to flirt outrageously with Ben and let him know she is up for a round of ‘hide the salami’. Ben isn’t your typical romance hero either; he is an Alpha male and lawman to boot, but he’s also quite shy and initially reluctant to start something with Molly. I really appreciated the role reversals – Ben is a respectful gentleman, reserved and sensitive to Molly’s feelings. Molly isn’t a blushing virgin but rather a feisty woman who knows what she wants and goes after it, guns blazing. I especially loved this self-motivating line of Molly’s – I think I might make it my own personal mantra;

Yes, she was imperfect. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t also spectacular.

Ben and Molly absolutely sizzle on the page. Dahl is a master at writing tasteful smut, and she’s absolutely in her element in the contemporary romance genre where her character’s bed-play includes dirty talk and sex toys. Yowza!

But maybe the main reason I liked Ben and Molly so much was because they knew how to have fun. Their relationship definitely had a lightness to it that was an absolute joy to read, and some moments had me cackling like a hyena. This excerpt, for instance;

“I’d hardly call it seduction.”

“Wait. What the hell does that mean?”

“It means you were drunk and slightly incoherent, and I should have been the one to know better."

“Slightly incoherent? Wow, you paint a beautiful picture.” She’d been thinking pretty damn fondly of that night, but she was suddenly overwhelmed by a very different image. A scene in which she, sloppy drunk and cracking unfunny jokes, masturbated herself against an unwilling man’s lap.

Oh, holy hell, she’d totally used Ben Lawson as a sex toy.

The book isn’t all light, sexy romance though. There’s actually a pretty suspenseful second storyline concerning Molly’s psychotic ex and a suspected stalker. Sometimes such dramatic storylines in romance books just feel like clumsy filler that the author felt was needed to break up all the sex scenes. But in ‘Talk me down’ the storylines is actually quite a page-turner, one that will keep you guessing until the very end.

‘Talk me down’ is brilliant. Victoria Dahl perfectly balances contemporary romance, thriller and rom-com in one delightfully smutty package. I was thoroughly impressed and after reading the last page of ‘Talk me down’ I cracked open second book, ‘Start me up’. Yep, I am addicted – and I owe it all to Patti (aka: Book Addict) who first introduced me to the delightful works of Ms. Dahl. Thank-you!

5/5