365 books in 365 days Challenge ... book #10

Surprise Me... - Isabel Sharpe
Mills and Boon Blaze
Harlequin Mills and Boon, 2011
ISBN: 9780263880601

My rating

From the back cover:

"Under the covers... and unexpected! When Melanie Hawthorne sneaks into her new man's bed one very dark night, she gets quite a few surprises. Great sex - toe curling in fact. Intense emotion and real feelings - even better. But it's all with the wrong man! Waking up along, Edgar Raymond can't believe the hot night he just had. Seduced by his fantasy woman, Melanie...how cool is that? He's totally captivated - until he realises she mistook him for his bad-boy brother!"

This is a follow on book from Isabel Sharpe's previous book 'While She Was Sleeping...', which I have previously read. My last review on a Blaze book I mentioned that that the covers of this series I sometimes find a little off putting, however I wanted to mention that the cover picture of this one is one of the made-over covers that I had previously discussed in my review of Melanie Milburne's 'The Wedding Charade'. The new blaze covers are much better, and more subtle, which I find more appealing! As you may have guessed, I am a big fan of book covers, I find them fascinating! I have a post I'm in the process of writing, which is all about this love of covers, so watch this space if you are interested! OK, so moving on to this book! This is the story of Melanie, she is the kind of girl that just cant help but fall for the wrong guys, the bad boys! She has been good friends with the male character Edgar for some time. Edgar has been in love with her for ages and really struggles watching her waste her time on the going nowhere liaisons she keeps having, but he is too shy to let her know how he feels.

Melanie's latest infatuation is for Edgar's bad boy musician brother, oddly nicknamed Stoner, she sneaks into his bed one night and they have great sex, only she doesn't realise that its actually Edgar's bed. The next day Edgar is over the moon at what he thinks is Melanie finally reaching out to him, only to be heartbroken when he realises that she thought she was making love with his brother. As the story progresses, Edgar convinces Melanie to give him a chance by taking her on dates with the plan to woe her and show her exactly what she is missing, all the while Melanie is trying to work through her issues with men and figure out just what she feels for Edgar.

The story is also mixed with Melanie's mother's tale of returning home after drug rehab trying to establish a relationship with her daughters, who she abandoned years ago, and also trying to figure out where to go with her life now. I really liked Melanie and Edgar's story, at first I found Edgar really dull, he didn't seem to have anything going for him, but over the course of the story Isabel Sharpe, very cleverly, revealed more and more interesting layers of Edgar and he was a much more like able character. He is by no means your Alpha-male and for him that really works. I did find myself getting annoyed with Melanie and her issues, yes we all know that sometimes the allure of the bad boy can be irresistible, but to keep falling for bad boy after bad boy, who she admits treat her like crap afterwards, is a little self degrading. I think their developing relationship was written very well and with a satisfying ending. Oh, by the way, the passion in the book is really hot! Xx