Too Hot to Handle Price: $6.15
3.5 Stars - But With Reservations, March 27, 2013 This review is from: Too Hot to Handle (Kindle Edition) Too Hot to Handle - Victoria Dahl Overall, with Merry and Shane being the personalities that they are, they were perfectly made for each other. You may like the characters more and at an earlier time than I was able to and I hope you do. For me it took until nearly the end of the book to really feel something for Shane and Merry. This book is an adequate way to kill a couple of hours since it is such a light potato chip type read. This is a relationship driven novel, built on Merry, our female protagonist, wanting to get `some'. She, for once in her life, wants to feel sexy and not inadequate which she gets from almost everyone else in her life. There is tons of sex in this novel. Merry has drifted through her life mostly and now she has landed this very interesting job as a curator of a theme museum. What she does not know is that the people who have hired her have their cash hampered by the Grandson of the person who left them this land/town. To make a long story short Merry meets a man and not just any man but one that sets her panties on fire. Naturally, this man has a huge secret he is keeping. One that will not only get Merry fired but can crush her heart. This man - Shane -is also a brooding angst ridden, sometimes very annoying man As I was reading the novel I had to keep wondering...weren't the characters supposed to be in their 30's or so? If so then why did Merry constantly speak like a college freshman? Why was she such a flibbertigibbet? She is naïve and flighty, needy and altogether annoying, so would she ever be able to mature? Shane was altogether the ultra man...hot, smart, sexy kind and hiding a deep dark secret. He knew just exactly what this would do to Merry yet he perpetuated this mess. In addition, naturally, he is found out and the mess brought to Merry's attention in the worst way possible. This book was a bit clichéd, which I have to say, is a little unusual for Ms Dahl's work. Her writing is usually like a breath of fresh air to me. However, this time the plot was a little thin and more or less just served as a way to fit in the sexy scenes. The characters in this book were for the most part annoying, if not sometimes downright unlikable for a more mature reader. I love erotica, but I also want my book to have a darn good story behind all the sex---nighttime dreaming about sex- the daydreaming about sex and sex with battery-operated toys. Luckily, though, if you stick with it, the characters do grow and learn from their pasts and become what each other needs and wants. *ARC Supplied by publisher*